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+--- Thread: 2021 Women's World Championships (/showthread.php?tid=10375)
2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 26-04-2021
This year's Championships, like the Men's, is a qualifying event for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022. There are 14 teams involved with the European teams keen to continue the form of their Men's teams. Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, RCF, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and United States are the combatants with Eve Muirhead representing Scotland. Her team consists of Victoria Wright (Vice-Skip), Jennifer Dodds (2nd), Lauren Gray (Lead) with Sophie Sinclair as Alternate. You'll know the story about RCF by this time and they cannot be discounted. The current Olympic champions, Sweden, are there plus of course Switzerland, the current World Champions. Korea are back and I'm certain Canada and the USA will be desperate to improve on their Men's performance.
The event is being held with exactly the same protocols and procedures as the Men's with the same strict Covid regulations and checks. Unfortunately this has led to the discovery of two positive cases from the same team, one on Friday and the second yesterday. needless to say, with the event due to start on 30 April, this could lead to it going ahead with only 13 teams, maybe more depending on any known contacts.
Hopefully the way ahead will become clear well before Friday's start, with the Semi-finals due to take place on 8 May and the Medal Games on 9 May.
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 28-04-2021
The latest news is that 13 of the 14 teams have received clearance to enter the tournament bubble and start pre-tournament practice tomorrow. Germany is the team to have had 2 positive cases and the 2 remain in isolation awaiting further tests and hopefully clearance by the Chief Medical Officer. The others in the team will undergo further tests to see if they can join the competition bubble, depending on continuing negative tests.
The organisers and the local health authorities have been on top of their game throughout and are taking no chances with the health and safety of the competitors and are to be congratulated.
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 29-04-2021
Assuming that the competition proceeds as drawn, Scotland are due to play US at 9am tomorrow morning (4pm UK time) and then Japan at 7pm (2am on Saturday UK time). Germany are due to play in both these sessions, so there might be changes to the playing order because of Germany's possible exclusion or delay. I'd like to think that Germany would be able to play in the competition, but only time will tell.
Scotland's game against Germany is scheduled for Saturday at 4pm UK time.
As far as Eurosport is concerned, what a complete waste of time!!! They're still showing highlights of the Men's Final almost 3 weeks ago for the umpteenth time, but no advance notice of the Women's Event.
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 30-04-2021
It has been announced that Germany will be allowed to compete with three players, as those three have consistently returned negative tests. Each of them will have a rapid test two hours before each game, followed immediately by a PCR Test. The two who have already returned positive tests will continue to be in isolation. So much for the privacy of the individuals concerned, as trumpeted in previous press releases - the two who don't play are the positive cases.
This scenario is apparently covered as "extenuating circumstances" under Rule C2(k) - in other words, tear up the rule book to do what you want (that's the officials, not Germany).
I don't think we've heard the last of this decision.
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - St Charles Owl - 30-04-2021
How do you compete with three players? Does each player get more stones, can two still brush or do they sacrifice the guy in the end zone?
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 30-04-2021
SCO - The first two players play 3 stones each and the last player plays 2 stones as normal. Usually teams must start with 4 players and are allowed to drop to 3 because of injury or illness. There will only be one sweeper, but the player can come up to help or the skip can come forward to help - it all depends on each shot required. At least the 2 players who tested positive can now be identified. Incidentally Germany lost 4-8 to RCF.
More importantly for me, Scotland eased to a 10-6 victory over the US, scoring 3 shots in the last end, after being in control after the halfway point.
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 01-05-2021
Following on from last night, Scotland again eased to another win, this time over Japan by 10-5. The Scots seem to have grasped the speed of the ice early on and this gives them confidence. As we all know in sport and life in general, confidence is key.
Scotland have one game today, at 4pm, against Germany who defeated the US last night by 8-7.
Tomorrow the Scots play China at 4pm and Korea at 9pm. All times are UK times.
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 01-05-2021
Scotland continue their winning ways with victory over Germany by 7-6 thanks to a last stone take-out by Eve Muirhead. The game was tight but well-managed by Scotland, who are still unbeaten after 3 games.
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 02-05-2021
And the Covid cases begin to mount.
This time there are an unidentified number of cases amongst the broadcasters. The entire broadcasting staff are now in isolation at their hotel, a different hotel to that used by the curlers and officials. In any case all broadcasts will cease until further notice.
To allow for an arena deep-clean and confirmation of the athletes' normal test results to come through, the 4pm session has been postponed until later in the week. If no further positive cases are identified, the tournament will resume with the scheduled session at 9pm, but delayed by 30 minutes.
The health authority and tournament officials are determined to get on top of this outbreak, but it does go to show that, despite encouraging signs and best efforts by the organisers, Covid-19 is not going away.
RE: 2021 Women's World Championships - ritchiebaby - 03-05-2021
Korea handed Scotland their first defeat yesterday, winning by 8-4. The Kim girls scored 3 shots in the 5th end, opening up a 4 shots advantage, which they comfortably held until the end. This was Korea's first win of the tournament, disappointingly against a Scottish team who were well off the pace.
Scotland now play Sweden at 4pm today, followed by Italy at 9pm.
The day's big story was a very rare score of 8 shots for Switzerland against Denmark in the 7th end of their game The Danes couldn't get their attempted draws hidden out of sight and the Swiss just picked them off every time.
The Swiss retained their 100% record alongwith RCF, with China, Scotland and Sweden on one defeat.
Now, back to the enigma that is Eurosport.
May 7 - Eurosport 2 at 4pm Round Robin Game LIVE
May 8 - Eurosport 2 at 4pm Play-off LIVE
May 8 - Eurosport 2 at 8pm Round Robin HIGHLIGHTS
May 8 - Eurosport 2 at 10pm Semi-final LIVE
May 9 - Eurosport 2 at 8am Semi-finals HIGHLIGHTS
May 9 - Eurosport 2 at 1pm Semi-finals HIGHLIGHTS
May 9 - Eurosport 2 at 3pm Bronze Medal Match LIVE
May 9 - Eurosport 2 at 7pm Semi-finals HIGHLIGHTS
May 9 - Eurosport 2 at 8pm Gold/Silver Medal Match LIVE
May 10 - Eurosport 2 at 4pm Gold/Silver Medal Match HIGHLIGHTS (and at 7pm and 9pm and every so often at different times for at least a fortnight).
Nothing guaranteed, though.