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And within minutes we're on to the Qualifying Competition, being held in Lohja, Finland from Friday 8 December to Tuesday 19 December, with the main event also taking place in Lohja in February.

WOMEN
The women’s championship is held from Friday 8 December until Tuesday 12 December. The teams are divided into four groups: one group of seven teams and three groups of six teams. The round-robin stage runs from 8 until 11 December and is followed by the quarter-finals at 19.00 on 11 December. The semi-finals and medal games will be held on 12 December, at 10.00 and 19.00, respectively.

MEN
The men’s round robin will take place from 14 to 17 December. The teams are divided into three groups: one group of eight teams and two groups of seven teams. The quarter-finals and semi-finals will be played on 18 December, at 10.00 and 17.00, respectively. The medal games will take place on 19 December at 10.00.

Concentrating on the Women first of all, the teams are from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Croatia, Czechia, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Türkiye, Ukraine and United States. The Group we will be interested in is Group B where the English Juniors will be playing against Hungary, Latvia, New Zealand, Slovakia and Ukraine.

England start their campaign against Ukraine tomorrow at 10.00 (UK time), then New Zealand at 18.00. On Saturday at 12.00 they will play Latvia and that will be 3 of their 5 games gone already. No hanging around here for the girls!

Straight from the World Mixed Doubles, will be the English 4th player, Lina Opel. Long Christmas Holidays from school for her! The team is Lina Opel (4th and Vice-Skip), Anna MacDougall (3rd and Skip), Marianna Ward (2nd), Helena Kiggell (Lead) and Phoenix Davies (Alternate).

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I'm sorry to report that England Junior Women's Championship is already over as far as Qualification is concerned. After 3 successive defeats in the first 2 days, Lina Opel and her team cannot catch at least 2 of the teams above them.

They lost 4-8 to Ukraine in the 1st game, despite being tied at 4-all with 2 ends to play. In the following game, they lost 3-10 to New Zealand, but still managed to score 3 single shots. Today's game saw them lose to Latvia by 3-6, once again scoring 3 single shots. In summary England are scoring often enough, but not high enough in each end. They seem to be playing quite well but are lacking the consistency in applying the killer touch or at least the saving shots required at this level.

Tomorrow they play Slovakia (also without a win) at the ungodly hour of 06.00 - that's UK time which equals 08.00 Finnish time. Then England finish (see what I did there?) at 14.00 against Hungary, who are one of the leaders. It would be good to see them register at least one win to confirm their promise.

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WOMEN
England's day got steadily worse after a decent, but losing, performance against Slovakia. They were actually ahead by 4-2 with 3 ends to play, but lost 3 ends in a row to go down 4-8. Facing Hungary in their final game, they lost by a score of 1-12 after 7 ends. They had a few changes in their later line-ups, but to no avail.

England finished with no wins and 5 defeats to end bottom of the Group B, with Hungary and Latvia qualifying. In Group C Germany and Denmark have also qualified for the later stages.

The other Groups complete their round-robin games tonight and tomorrow, before the Quarter-finals tomorrow at 17.00 and the Semi-finals and Finals on Tuesday.

MEN
The competitors are from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, England, Hong Kong, Hungary, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, Ukraine and United States and are split into 3 Groups.

England are drawn in Group C along with Brazil, Denmark, Hong Kong, Latvia, New Zealand and United States. Their first games will be on Thursday 14 December at 06.00 (remember the time difference) against Brazil and later at 14.00 against United States.

Other than that, ZILCH! No photographs, no player's names, nothing! What is wrong with the WCF/English Curling providing easliy accessible details? English Curling provide excellent articles about their Junior Teams on their website, but unfortunately it's last year's teams!!! 

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WOMEN
The 4 Semi-finalists qualified for the World Juniors in February and were, in finishing order, China, Canada, Germany and Turkey.

MEN
England are represented by Benjamin Holcombe (Skip), Toby Martin (3rd), Owen Brackpool (2nd), Isaac Blakely (Lead) and Alternate Robert Mechem. They are drawn in Group C with 6 other nations - Brazil, Denmark, Hong Kong, Latvia, New Zealand and United States.

England start their games against Brazil at 06.00 tomorrow, then United States at 14.00, also tomorrow.

Still no photos or player info.

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MEN
England started off where the Women finished off with 2 defeats. In the first game against Brazil they led 5-0 after 3 ends and then 6-5 coming in to the last end but still lost 6-8. It was even worse against United States, losing 5 shots in the 2nd end and 3 shots in the 3rd end to leave themselves no chance, eventually losing 4-10.

Tomorrow England play Denmark at 07.00 and New Zealand at 17.00.

At last!!! England are in red. Presumably Brazil are in white. I've no idea who is who but at least it's a start.

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Thanks to me trawling through FB pages and "stalking" Isaac Blakely in particular, I've managed to trace a photo of the English junior curlers. The photo came from their funding appeal page. It appears they're out for a good time as well as playing well and improving their curling prowess. I like the cut of their jib. Good luck, England, I'm sure you will be a credit to the sport and the spirit of the game.

It would seem that the curlers from L to R are Felix Price (coach), Ben Holcombe (Skip), Toby Martin (3rd), Owen Brackpool (2nd), Isaac Blakely (Lead) and Bobby Mechem (Alternate).

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England are having a really tough time of it this week with the Men losing heavily twice today. The 1st game was totally one-sided, losing 1-11 against Denmark with the 2nd much the same, losing 1-10 to New Zealand.

It doesn't look as though it might be any better tomorrow with their final 2 games against Latvia at 10.00 and Hong Kong at 18.00. The only consolation is that Hong Kong haven't won a game either, so hopefully England will come good in this one.

For anyone remotely interested in the trials and tribulations of curling, have a read of Felix Price's end-by-end reports on https://www.facebook.com/englishcurling (I've a funny feeling that if it wasn't for Felix, we'd learn nothing about the boys' adventures).

On a personal level, Owen Brackpool reached the grand old age of 21 today. I hope he managed to shake off the curling blues and celebrate in style tonight.

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England continued their dismal week (curling-wise) with another heavy defeat on Saturday, this time to Latvia by 1-9. Owen Brackpool must have enjoyed his birthday a bit too much, being replaced in the 3rd end by Bobby Mechem. I knew the feeling well when I was his age!

In their final game with Owen back on song, the bottom 2 teams served up an exciting game with the game going to an extra end before England fell 5-9 to Hong Kong. To be fair to the English Juniors, there were a lot of big scores in the other games as well - 12 of the games had winning margins of over 10 shots, with Sweden scoring an exceptional 22 shots, then 25 shots in 2 of their games.

Finally a special thanks to Felix Price for his excellent summaries on the ECA website. It's a pity it takes a newcomer to show the ECA hierarchy how it should be done. Well done to all the lads, I'm sure it'll stand them in good stead for the future.

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In the absence of a suitable thread (I can't be bothered to do one!!!), I'd like to give a special mention to the Team GB medal-winners at the Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, South Korea.

100% from our curlers who won 2 Golds from 2 events - Mixed Team (Holly Burke, Archie Hyslop, Tia Laurie and Logan Carson) and Mixed Doubles (Callie Soutar and Ethan Brewster).



Also, in the less important events  , an especially brilliant return from Zak Carrick-Smith, who won 2 Golds and a Silver in Alpine Skiing. And a Bronze for Ashlie Slatter and Atl Ongay-Perez in the Ice Dance.