Nicole Sanders and Jord van Weeren won both titles for the Netherlands at the European Championship of Champions in Ankara on Saturday, two days after winning mixed doubles gold together.
Sanders beat Greece's Alexandra Giannadaki 2-0 in the women's final. Meanwhile Van Weeren came back from a game down to beat Norway's Mathias Danielsen Otting 2-1 in the men's final.
Sanders: from 17th to champion
Sanders was 17th after the first block of qualifying on Wednesday. She moved into the top eight with the best women's set in mixed doubles, finished qualifying third, and held that position through Saturday's eight-game Final Step 1 with 6,203.
Giannadaki led the field into the semifinals. She added 1,693 in Final Step 1, the best women's block of the round, and finished 32 games with 6,546, 219 pins ahead of Ireland's Hannah Masterson.
Sweden's Hanna Engberg took the last semifinal spot with 6,123. She moved up from eighth with 1,535 and finished 11 pins ahead of Finland's Ani Juntunen.
Giannadaki beat Engberg 2-0 (201-179, 222-208) in the first semifinal. Sanders beat Masterson 2-0 (203-199, 226-212) in the second, after edging the first game by four pins.
In the final, Sanders opened with 204 to Giannadaki's 176 and closed out the title with 223 to 192.
Giannadaki took silver. Masterson and Engberg each received bronze as the losing semifinalists.
Women's Finals
Best-of-three matches:
Standings After 32 Games
Top 4 advanced to the semifinals:
Van Weeren comes back in the final
Raymond Teece, who took the qualifying lead with a 300 game on Friday, stayed on top through Final Step 1 with 7,057, 33 pins ahead of Lukas Jelinek. Otting was third with 6,942.
Van Weeren took the fourth spot with 6,826, 32 pins ahead of Ireland's Christopher Sloan. Slovakia's Simon Hrusovsky bowled the best block of the round, 1,729, but finished sixth.
The top two qualifiers both lost in the semifinals. Teece won the first game against van Weeren 237-227, but the Dutchman took the next two, 233-217 and 222-160. Jelinek, last year's champion, opened with 256 against Otting, who answered with 235 and 259 to win 2-1.
The final followed the same pattern. Otting won the first game 236-205. Van Weeren took the second 194-166 and won the deciding game 217-177.
Otting took silver, and Teece and Jelinek each received bronze.
Men's Finals
Best-of-three matches:
Standings After 32 Games
Top 4 advanced to the semifinals:
A Dutch week in Ankara
The Netherlands leave Ankara with three titles: mixed doubles gold for Sanders and van Weeren, and both singles championships.
Full results are available on the ECC 2026 standings page.
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