CURLING: First Eight Women's Curling Teams Set for 2018 Olympic Winter Games

It took until the last stone, of the last game of Thursday (23 March) evening’s last round-robin session of the CPT World Women’s Curling Championship 2017 in Beijing, China to determine the final line-up for the weekend’s medal play-off games.

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Next live WCTV game: Canada v Russa [Page 1v2 play-off] (Friday 24 March at 19.00, +8 UTC)

It was Scotland’s skip Eve Muirhead who knocked out a Czech Republic stone to score two points in the tenth end of the game between them for the 7-6 win that gave the Scots the fourth qualifying slot. Scotland now go on to face Sweden in Saturday’s (25 March) Page 3v4 play-off game – live on World Curling TV and national broadcasters at 14.00 (+8 UTC).

To reach this stage, Scotland had beaten Germany by 7-2 earlier, while following that the Czechs had a win, also over Germany, by 5-3.

Beside the Czech v Scotland game, Russia faced hosts China and won by 6-4. This victory followed their 7-3 win over Sweden. Because they had beaten Sweden, Russia advance to the Page 1v2 play-off against unbeaten leaders Canada. Meanwhile, Sweden, on the same win–loss record, who had beaten China by 10-4 in the morning’s play, now rank third overall, and go on to face the Scots.

In the day’s two earlier sessions, Canada had beaten Italy by 8-5 and then Denmark by 8-4 to complete their unbeaten round-robin run.

Elsewhere, in the rankings, two wins by the USA – by 8-5 over Switzerland and then by 5-4 over Korea – put the Americans in fifth place overall. Switzerland and Korea played each other in the evening session, a game which Korea won by 9-8 to rank sixth, while Switzerland finished eighth.

In the fourth game of the last session, Denmark beat Italy by 8-7 to finally record their first win of the week. They ranked 12th overall and Italy finished tenth. Between them hosts China finished 11th.

Women’s 2018 Olympic Winter Games

These results also mean that Canada, Great Britain (qualified as Scotland), Japan, hosts Korea, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and USA have qualified their National Olympic Committees for the women’s curling event in the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang, Republic of Korea. This is certain at the conclusion of the CPT World Women’s Curling Championship 2017 round-robin. The Games will be held from 9-25 February 2018.

This also means that China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Latvia and Norway are eligible to compete in the World Curling Federation’s Olympic Qualification Event to be held in Pilsen, Czech Republic between 5 and 10 December 2017. This event will determine the last two women’s teams to qualify for the Games.

They said it

Anna Hasselborg; skip, Sweden (after 10-4 win over China): "That’s amazing! Our first goal of the tournament was to secure the play-offs and secure the spot in the Olympics for Sweden and we’ve done just that. We’re feeling good, we’re playing better all the time. The girls have been playing amazing all week. Yesterday they made a huge team effort when I was shaking a bit, so this game was just like icing on the cake."

Tabitha Peterson; vice-skip, USA (after 8-5 win over Switzerland): "At this point it’s a sudden death kind of thing. We need to win them all to control our own destiny and hopefully things shake out in our favour. We came out strong and held in there throughout the game."

Rachel Homan; skip, Canada (after 8-4 win over Denmark): "We were in the [Page] 1-2 as of this morning, so we just wanted to stay focussed on the task in hand and not to the 1-2 already. There will be a bit more nerves [going into the play-offs] but we know how to deal with them and we have been in this position before. We need to make it to the final game, whatever it takes. It has been really fun [being in Beijing] – it has been a new experience and new culture. We’re really fortunate to experience this and be so far away from home."

Anna Kubeskova; skip, Czech Republic (after 5-3 win over Germany): "We really had to win this game – both teams really had to win this game. It was tough but we made the key shots and the last end was really under our control. Last time we played Scotland was the European bronze medal game, which we lost, so they are probably the favourites [in the final round-robin game]. But, we’re happy for this win, so I think we can build on that, make the key shots and put the pressure on them."

Anna Sidorova; skip, Russia (after 6-4 win over China): "We knew that if we won the game we would play Page 1-2 game against Team Homan [Canada] and this would give us two chances for the Worlds final. We felt it was a tough week for us, but it was our main goal to get this chance. We have never played 1-2 page before – we are improving ever year. We stayed focussed and never compromised to win."

Eve Muirhead; skip, Scotland (after 7-6 win over Czech Republic): "That was a good game, she [Anna Kubeskova] played some cracking draws to keep them in the game. We were patient, which was key out there. The ice was tricky – the trickiest it’s been, but we adapted to it pretty quickly. We were at the stage that win, win, win was what we had to do. Our first goal was to make the Play-offs and we’ve ticked that box. Our next goal is to make the semi-final and onwards from there."

Results after session 15: Sweden 10-4 China; Italy 5-8 Canada; Switzerland 5-8 USA; Scotland 7-2 Germany

Results after session 16: USA 5-4 Korea; Czech Republic 5-3 Germany; Sweden 3-7 Russia; Canada 8-4 Denmark

Results after session 17: Denmark 8-7 Italy; Russia 6-4 China; Czech Republic 6-7 Scotland; Switzerland 8-9 Korea

Standings after round-robin (W-L):

Q Canada 11-0

Q Russia 8-3

Q Sweden 8-3

Q Scotland 7-4

USA 6-5

Korea 5-6

Czech Republic 5-6

Switzerland 5-6

Germany 5-6

Italy 3-8

China 2-9

Denmark 1-10

Curling fans around the world will be able to follow live coverage of these championships on the event website and the World Curling Federation’s YouTube channel.

Live broadcast coverage may be geo-blocked in your region. For all broadcast information visit here.

For more information, please contact:

Cameron MacAllister

Communications & Media Relations Manager

World Curling Federation

Email: media@worldcurling.org

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