Finland's Osku Palermaa, Petteri Salonen, Joonas Jähi, Kimmo Lehtonen and Jussi Turtiainen finished the second 3-game block on long oil with a huge 1173 game (234.60 average) to claim the No. 1 seed for the Team finals in the 2009 Men's European Championships.

The Finns had games of 1086, 1031 and 1173 to add 3290 pins to the 3157 pinfall on short oil to lead the field of 28 teams after the six-game preliminaries with 6447 pinfall total and an average of 214.90.

Two-hander Palermaa, who earned an exemption for the PBA Word Series in August, led the team with the field-best 706 block on Friday and the highest individual six-game total of 1393. Jähi had 1375, Lehtonen 1301, Salonen 1225 and Turtiainen 1153.

Due to the high series, defending All Events champion Palermaa, jumped into third place in All Events to earn the bronze medal. Palermaa was tied with team mate Jähi at 5202 (216.75) but opposite to many other sports, who would give two bronze medals, Jähi was seeded fourth due to the lower last game (Jähi 255, Palermaa 263).

Norwegian Petter Hansen (center, with team manager and former Norwegian standout, Erik Garder, left, and head coach and former PBA champion Mats Karlsson, right) captured the gold medal in All Events with 5261 averaging 219.21 for 24 games (12 games Doubles, six games in Trios and in Team). Dominic Barrett, England, received the silver medal with 5209 (217.04).

Barrett and his team mates Matt Chamberlain, Matt Miller (replaced Mike Quarry), John Wells and Stuart Williams led the competition after the first block on short oil with 3364 (224.27). The Englishmen felled 3077 on the long pattern to land in second place with 6441 (214.70) mere six pins behind Finland.

In the semifinals, England will take on defending champion Sweden with Trios champions Erik Andersin, Dennis Eklund, Mathias Ã…rup and Doubles runner-up Martin Larsen and Robert Andersson.

The Swedes had 3013 on long and 3238 on short oil to secure the third place in the prelims with 6251 (208.37).

Norway (4th with 5182 after 5 games), Denmark (5th, 5176) and Germany (6th, 5117) battled it out for the fourth and final spot to advance. Norway slipped to sixth place behind a 967 final game with 6149 pinfall total. Denmark finished with a 999 game and 6175, but had to settle for fifth place as Germany posted a 1080 final game to leap into fourth place with 6197.

David Canady, Pascal Winternheimer, Dirk Völkel, Marco Baade and Tobias Gäbler will meet tournament leader Finland in the other semifinal.

The top 4 trios advanced to the semifinals at 7.30pm, The No. 1 after 6 games will bowl the No. 4 seed and the No. 2 takes on No. 3 in the semifinals. The winners will bowl for the title at 8.30pm and the losers will share the bronze medal. All matches are one-game matches.