Ritsuko Nakayama, pioneer of Japan's bowling boom, dies at 84

Ritsuko Nakayama, a pioneering female professional bowler who helped ignite the bowling boom of the late 1960s and 1970s in Japan, died Saturday, according to the national sport organization. She was 84.Nakayama was one of 13 first-generation female professional bowlers in 1969, after playing volleyball at a high school in Kagoshima Prefecture. She had been receiving treatment for an illness, the Japan Professional Bowling Association said.A symbol of Japan's high economic growth from the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, she became the nation's first female professional bowler to score a perfe…READ FULL ARTICLE