[ritchiebaby]

In today's games, England suffered a defeat at the hands of Slovakia by 2 shots to 8. After a reasonable start, England lost 3 ends in a row to leave themselves far too much to do. Scotland ground out a solid result against Sweden by winning 7-3, losing only 1 end in the process.

Scotland and Slovakia now lead the section with 4 wins. England, Sweden and Slovenia are 1 win behind.

The final two section games come tomorrow, with England playing Slovenia and Italy. Scotland's opponents are Israel and Turkey. Still all to play for as far as England and Scotland are concerned, as there will be a qualification session on Wednesday evening before Thursday's Semi-finals and Final.

[ritchiebaby]

Section A have now completed their games with England beating Slovenia 11-3, courtesy of 5 shots in the 5th end, and then sneaking past Italy 8-6. This guarantees them at least a tie-breaker with Sweden, who finished equal third with England.

Scotland are guaranteed qualification after demolishing Israel 14-1 and Turkey 11-1. They join Slovakia from Section A and Finland and Poland from Section B.

Section B complete their games tomorrow morning after which the tie-breakers will be finalised. It's all up in the air at the moment but all will become clear tomorrow night.

[ritchiebaby]

England managed to trump Sweden in their tie-breaker game by 8 shots to 3, with a run of 4 consecutive ends totalling 7 shots. They now advance to tonight's qualifying match against Poland for the right to play Scotland in the second Semi-final tomorrow. Edmund Hillary had a mountain to climb that was only marginally more difficult, but England are certainly good enough if they all pull together.

In the first Semi-final, Finland await the winners of Estonia v Slovakia in the other qualifying game. Both the Semi-finals and Finals are played tomorrow.

[ritchiebaby]

Tonight Slovakia beat Estonia 6-2 and England beat Poland 5-2 in a game where they were never behind.

Tomorrow morning's Semi-finals are Slovakia v Finland and Scotland v England. At least one of the home countries are guaranteed a medal, as well as a guaranteed place in the main World Championship event in March next year, and both could gain medals. Good luck to both teams!

[St Charles Owl]

Shame they have to meet in the semi, but I would assume both teams will take that!!!

[ritchiebaby]

The main event this morning was England v Scotland and the game was dominated by Scotland, who scored freely when they had the chance. After a 2 in the first end for England, Scotland replied with a 4 in the second end and never looked back. The game ended with Scotland leading 13-3 with two ends to go.

In the other Semi-final, Finland won the final three ends to ease to a 8-2 win over Slovakia. Unfortunately for Scotland, Finland also won a close Final by 6 shots to 4. England's downturn in form continued, losing 1-9 to Slovakia.

Medallists
GOLD - Finland
SILVER - Scotland
BRONZE - Slovakia

Finland and Scotland have now qualified for the 2017 World Championships in Gangneung, South Korea in March. This will be the last qualifying competition for the 2018 Paralympic Winter Games, to be held in PyeongChang.

I managed to find a photo of the English team in action, but I'm sorry to say I have no idea of the players' names.

[St Charles Owl]

Excellent for Scotland, shame England couldn't keep their form going to the end but still a good performance. Great coverage as per usual Ritchie!!

[ritchiebaby]

Further photos gleaned from Facebook.

Scotland at the medals ceremony (Angie Malone on the left) and at the end of the game (Aileen Neilson facing camera and Gregor Ewan on the right)



Two of the England team - one of the men and Rosemary Lenton preparing to play plus the English team with their coach Joan Reed (in white hat)



From the WCF press release it would appear that the 12 countries for the Paralympic Games are now finalised and that the 2017 Championships will be a test event, with of course the World medals up for grabs. The 12 countries with the required ranking points are Russia, China, Norway, USA, Canada, Slovakia, Finland, Korea (as hosts), Switzerland, Germany, Scotland (competing as Great Britain) and Sweden.