[ritchiebaby]

This year's Championship begins on Saturday 18 March and ends on Sunday 26 March, in Sandviken, Sweden in the Göransson Arena - a 10,000-seater facility which opened in 2009. The round robin games will determine the top six ranked teams. The teams ranked first and second will proceed directly to the Semi-finals. For teams ranked third to sixth, qualification games will take place on Saturday 25 March at 10:00 (3v6 and 4v5). The Semi-finals will also take place on 25 March at 16:00, with the Medal games being played on Sunday 26 March.

The competing teams are Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, New Zealand, Scotland, Switzerland, Sweden, Türkiye and United States

Scotland are represented by their European Bronze Medallists - Rebecca Morrison (Skip),  Gina Aitken (Vice-Skip), Sophie Sinclair (2nd), Sophie Jackson (Lead) with Jennifer Dodds (Alternate). For me they might not quite get there this time, but, as they have already proved, they are good enough. The main dangers are definitely Japan, Sweden, Switzerland and United States, leaving the Scots to fight with Canada and Denmark for the remaining 2 places. Let's hope there is no Covid to hinder us this year!

Scotland's first game is on Saturday against Germany at 7pm, followed on Sunday by Denmark at 9am and Japan at 7pm.

[ritchiebaby]

A strong performance from Scotland saw off Germany 12-5 afyer 9 ends in their first game. The second game was a different affair, the Scots slipping to a 7-9 defeat against Denmark. The pendulum swung to and fro again in tonight's game against Japan, Scotland eventually losing 4 shots in the final end to go down 8-9. It's just my opinion of course, but a tragic tactical error in the last end allowed Japan a straightforward single-stone take-out to win the game.


Rebecca Morrison                                                    Gina Aitken                                                             Sophie Sinclair     
                                             

Sophie Jackson                                                       Jen Dodds (regulars might recognise her as a Gold Medallist at Olympic, World and European level)

Tomorrow's games are against Korea at 2pm and Canada at 7pm. One win will be essential, two wins will get them back on track.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland's poor spell in each game continues unabated to leave themselves a mountain to climb to qualify for the later stages.

They firstly lost 3 successive ends late in the game against Korea, leaving themselves too much to do and lost by 4-6. To make matters worse, they then repaeated that mistake losing 3 successive ends against Canada after the halfway point and although they made a valiant attempt to rescue the situation, they fell just short, losing 8-9.

Scotland now have Norway to play at 2pm tomorrow, then Italy at 7pm. On Wednesday they play United States at 2pm in their only game. After these games, we will see how things are looking, but a swift return to winning ways is paramount.

[ritchiebaby]

Things have gone from bad to worse, then even worse and finally better, but far too late..

The Scotland team suffered 2 more defeats yesterday - 6-9 against Norway and 6-7 against Italy. Today saw a big improvement against United States when they held their nerve to win 8-7 against the hammer in the final end, in which they forced the US into taking on big shots which didn't quite come off. Jennifer Dodds came into the team for the game against Italy and stayed there for the win over United States, replacing Gina Aitken.

Tomorrow Scotland play Sweden at 9am and New Zealand at 2pm. Friday sees them take on Switzerland at 9am and finally Turkiye at 7pm. Unfortunately for the Scots they only have 2 wins so far, only ahead of New Zealand, and need to win all 4 games to stand a realistic chance of qualifying in the top 6.

Currently Switzerland are unbeaten on 8 wins, with Canada and Italy on 6 wins. Germany, Norway and Sweden have 5 wins and must surely gain at least 1 win each from their remaining games. Depending on results, even Korea, United States, Denmark, Japan and Turkiye have a decent chance of qualifying ahead of Scotland.

[ritchiebaby]

It didn't take too long for the wheels to come off completely. After losing 6-9 against Sweden, Scotland had no chance of finishing in the top 6, as Japan, Sweden, Turkey and United States all won at least one game. The Scots once again fell behind in the second half of the game, after competing well for the first 6 ends.

In their second game of the day, they did manage to beat New Zealand 8-3 in pretty much of a consolation game. They now have 3 wins, leaving them, Denmark and New Zealand unable to qualify.

Switzerland lead the way on 10 wins out of 10 - they have now won their last 30 games in the Worlds, a new record - with Sweden on 7 wins and Canada, Italy, Norway and United States on 6 wins. Snapping at their heels on 5 wins are Germany, Japan and Turkey, with Korea on 4 wins.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland depart the competition with just 3 wins to show for their 12-game run. Admittedly their first defeat today was against runaway leaders Switzerland by only 6-7 and the loss of 3 shots in the 4th end made life difficult. Having said that they took the Swiss team all the way and were lying shot and game, forcing Alina Paetz to play her last stone to perfection. Perhaps more disappointingly, Scotland also lost against Turkiye by 7-10. Although always behind, they were lying shot to try to force an extra end, but on this occasion the Turkish skip played an excellent take-out to get the win.

Of Scotland's 9 defeats, 4 were by 1 shot, 2 by 2 shots and 3 by 3 shots. On another day at least 4 of these losses might have turned out to be wins. Immensely frustrating!

In the final reckoning, Switzerland sailed through the round-robin with 12 wins, well ahead of Norway on 8 wins and Canada, Italy, Sweden and Japan, each on 7 wins. At 10am tomorrow Canada play Japan and Italy play Sweden in the Qualification Games with the winners going on to play Norway and Switzerland respectively in the Semi-finals at 4pm.

[Lord Snooty]

Immensely frustrating, ritchiebaby. How much time do they have to get their act together for the Olympics?

[ritchiebaby]

There's plenty of time yet, Snooty. The qualification for the 2026 Olympics are based on points earned over the World Championships of 2023,2024 and 2025. In the worst possible scenarion, there is a Qualification Tournament 3 or 4 months before the Olympics for the also-rans. Remember it might not be the current team who play in the future.

Back to the present and Canada beat Sweden 8-5 in the Bronze Medal Match. Switzerland continued their unbeaten record during the last 3 Championships - it's now 35 games since they were beaten on 4 May 2021 by Sweden - beating Norway 6-3.

Incidentally, the Qualification Games resulted in wins for Sweden over Italy by 4-3 and Canada over Japan by 6-4. In the Semi-finals Switzerland beat Sweden by 8-4 and Norway beat Canada by 8-5.

MEDALS
GOLD - Switzerland
SILVER - Norway
BRONZE - Canada


Fourth: Alina Pätz, Skip: Silvana Tirinzoni, Second: Carole Howald, Lead: Briar Schwaller-Hürlimann To quote Eric, I've got all the right names, but not necessarily in the right order!