Mark Spiteri repeated his feat from last year by retaining the silver medal he had already won during the European Seniors Bowling Championships (ESBC) held recently in Copenhagen.

The 2016 edition of these championships attracted 892 top senior bowlers from 24 countries, competing in what has become the largest international bowling event in Europe.

Spiteri showed his form with an encouraging start in the singles event where he hammered in a remarkable series of 1,332 to finish in fourth place from among 178 bowlers in his category.

Spiteri missed out on a bronze by a mere 11 pins.

Next up was the doubles event where he was partnered by Paul Baldacchino. They placed 22nd out of no fewer than 121 pairs.

Another strong performance came in the trios competition where Spiteri and Baldacchino were joined by Giancarlo Tolu in the team.

They went close to the medal zone but eventually settled for seventh place from 206 teams.

It is worth pointing out that the Maltese trio registered a high game of 681 – a new national record for the senior game category.

Spiteri’s overall performance in singles, doubles and trios competitions meant that he had qualified in fourth place for the Masters tournament – the ‘blue riband’ event of the championships, re-served only for the top six bowlers overall.

The Masters is played on a round robin basis with all pins carried forward from the preceding 18 games and bonus points awarded for wins and high scores.

Spiteri lost his first two encounters, one of which to eventual winner Michael Wittendorff, of Denmark.

But, from then on Spiteri played brilliantly to climb to second place after consecutive wins over Paul Morris, of England, Dutchman Peter Broekmans and Esa Nieminen, of Finland.

The Maltese veteran bowler registered a high game of 266 which gave him the momentum to overtake two opponents and claim the silver medal.

It was confirmed that the 2017 ESBC will be played in Dublin.