Jean-Marc Lebon (pictured left), Belgium, led the 42-player field in the Men's European Champions Cup after eight games on short oil with 1868 or an average of 233.50. Lebon used seven games over 200 including a 290 in game #7 and a 194 low game to hold a 79-pin cushion over England's Dominic Barrett, who sits in second place with 1789.

The two-time World Youth champion (right) started Wednesday afternoon at Treff Bowling in Duisburg, Germany, with a disappointing 125 game but rebounded with seven games between 203 and 264.

Sami Konsteri fired the high game of the championships thus far but missed a perfect game by one pin (299) in game #7 to help grab the third place with 1781.

Francois Sacco (left), whose wife Isabelle is third in the women's division, followed in her footprints and checked in fourth place with 1757.

Fifth place belonged to 2006 ECC champion Or Aviram, Israel (1721) with Mathias Årup, Sweden sixth (1707) and Evangelos Krizinis, Greece in seventh place (1676).

World Tenpin Masters champ Guy Caminsky, South Africa, is the "man on the bubble" in 8th position with 1674 or an average of 209,25. Just outside the box looking in is Treff Bowling proprietor and long-time German national team captain Achim Grabowski with 1540.

Defending champion Marco Reviglio, Italy, has some work to do over the next two days as he finished the first of three blocks in 24th place with 1540, 115 off the pace for 8th place.

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.