1st December, Hong Kong: Germany led from start to finish in the 5-Player Team first block preliminaries of the 2018 CGSE • Million Tinkle World Men Championships and topped the squad ahead of Sweden and Singapore in second and third.

First perfect gamer, Fabian Kloos led his team-mates, Pascal Winternheimer, Oliver Morig, Tobias Bording and Frank Drevenstedt with a superb 1065 in their first game to set the pace of the first block of three games.

Trios Semi-finalists of Mattias Wetterberg, Jesper Svensson, Martin Larsen teamed up with Pontus Andersson and Peter Hellstrom to post a respectable 1012 to trail the German team by 53 pins. China's Du Jianchao, Wang Hongbo, Qi Wankang, Deng Heng and Mi Zhongli followed in third with a promising 1008.

Costa Rica's Marcon Moretti, Erik Roy, Jonaykel Conejo, Juan Rodriguez and Rodolfo Madriz was third with 994. 2017 South-East Asian Games Team gold medallist of Basil Ng, Jonovan Neo, Joel Tan, Darren Ong and Muhd Jaris Goh of Singapore followed in fourth, just one pin adrift.