Marieke de Jong (pictured left) from the Netherlands averaged 224.63 on the short oil pattern en route to overtake the lead in the Women's European Champions Cup after Block One on Wednesday morning at Treff Bowling in Duisburg, Germany.

De Jong used high games of 246 and 248 to lead the field of 39 women from 39 European Tenpin Bowling Federation member federations after the first of three blocks with 1797 pinfall total.

Zara Glover (right), England was close behind to finish in second place with 1785. Isabelle Sacco, France was the third player, who reached the 1700-mark, with 1701.

Krista Pöllänen (left), Finland, finished with a 257 game to narrow the gap to Sacco to five pins. Pöllänen is fourth with 1696. Britt Brøndsted, Denmark, sits in fifth place with 1668, followed by Sue Abela, Malta, with 1662 and Katrien Goossens, Belgium, with 1624.

Olga Tarasova, Ukraine, fired a 290 in the eighth game, the highest game of the block, to tie Natassa Rovithaki, Greece for 8th place with 1613, an average of 201.63.

The ECC features the national champions or ranking leaders - one man and one woman per country - of the European Tenpin Bowling Federation member federations plus the defending champions.

All players will bowl three 8-game blocks (a total of 24 games) preliminaries over three days: Block 1 on short oil, Block 2 on long oil and Block 3 on short/long oil (left lane short, right lane long).

The top 8 players after the preliminaries will qualify for the single-elimination final in best-of-three games format. In each round the highest seeded player will bowl the lowest seeded player 2nd highest vs. the 2nd lowest, etc.) based on the preliminaries.