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World Curling Championship action continues in Europe when the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2024 are staged from 16-23 November. The Kisakallio Sports Institute in Lohja, Finland will host the A-Division competitions, with the following teams-

The ten A-Division women’s teams are: Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Türkiye.

The ten A-Division men’s teams are: Austria, Czechia, England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Round-robin play commences on Saturday 16 November and will continue until Thursday 21 November. In both men’s and women’s events, the top four teams will progress to semi-finals. Semi-finals and qualification games will start on Thursday 21 November. For the semi-finals of both gender A-Divisions, the teams ranked first on the round-robin table will play the fourth-ranked teams, while the second and third-ranked teams will face each other. Both women’s and men’s gold medal games will be staged on Saturday 23 November.

Scotland Women are Rebecca Morrison (Skip), Jennifer Dodds (Third), Sophie Sinclair (Second), Sophie Jackson (Lead) and Fay Henderson (Alternate). They will be looking to improve on last year's 5th place finish.

Rebecca, Jennifer, Sophie S, Sophie J

Scotland Men are the usual suspects - Bruce Mouat (Skip), Grant Hardie (Third), Bobby Lammie (Second), Hammy McMillan (Lead) and Alternate Kyle Waddell. They are the form team in this event, having won Gold in the previous 3 years and are the current World and Tour Challenge Champions.

Kyle, Hammy, Bobby, Grant, Bruce

England Men consist of Rob Retchless (Skip), Jotham Sugden (Third), Scott Gibson (Second), Jonathan Havercroft (Lead) and Colin Mouat (Alternate). Colin is better known as the good-looking brother of Bruce.

Jonathan, Scott, Jotham, Rob

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Scotland Women start their tournament on Saturday 16th at 7.00am against Sweden, followed by Denmark at 5.30pm the same day and Switzerland at 12 noon on Sunday 17th.

England Men play Italy at 12.30pm on Saturday 16th, Netherlands at 7.00am on Sunday 17th and their old foes, Scotland, at 5.00pm that evening.

Scotland Men play Netherlands at 12.30pm on Saturday 16th, Norway on Sunday 17th at 7.00am, then, amazingly enough, play the Auld Enemy, England, at 5.00pm.

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I've just noticed on the Scottish Curling FB page that some of Scotland's games will be streamed on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website - see details below. If the Scots qualify for the later stages, they too will be featured with the Gold Medal match also on the BBC Scotland channel.

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I've just been watching Scotland Women beat Denmark by 11-9 after an extra end. In my (half-decent club standard) opinion, they made a bit of a mess in the 6th end, losing 3 shots, by taking on a double strike which only took out their own shot, instead of opting for the percentage shot of either drawing up to the Danish stone or promoting their own one. However they survived and that's what counts.

Earlier in the day they lost by 5-8 against Sweden, despite being in the game all the way, although each Swedish player had a much higher percentage ranking than the Scots.

Scotland Men beat Netherlands by 8-6. They also lost 3 shots (in the 7th end) to make the game closer than it should have been.

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I forgot to say that England Men were beaten 3-8 by Italy after 8 ends this afternoon. My apologies to my English friends - if I have any left!

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Last night saw the Scotland Women suffered a right royal thumping by Switzerland, losing 1-8 after only 6 ends. To make matters worse, they then lost 4-5 against Turkiye this morning , solely due to a loss of 3 shots in the final end. The Scots now have to play three of the "weaker" teams with Hungary at 2pm today, Estonia tomorrow at 7am and Lithuania at 5pm tomorrow. Mind you I could have used that term about Turkiye, so let's take nothing for granted.

For the Men, Scotland narrowly beat Norway 6-5 yesterday, with the advantage of playing last stone in the final end. They then went on to comfortably dispose of England by 8-1 after 6 ends, with the Mouat brothers in opposition. In today's game, they played Switzerland in a top-of-the-table clash, with Moaut missing a long double-take-out by an inch or so to win the game with his last stone. They're now playing an extra end, with a game against Austria at 6pm tonight and then Italy tomorrow at noon.

England had earlier lost against Netherlands yesterday by 5-7 and have just lost to Norway by 4-9. They now play Czechia at 6pm tonight, then tomorrow will play Switzerland at 12 noon.

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And Bruce Mouat and Co survive thanks to an excellent last stone from Bruce, to leave the Swiss skip a tricky last stone, which narrowly failed.

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The Scotland Women redeemed themselves tonight with a 9-3 win over Hungary after 7 ends, a controlled performance to give themselves a chance of progression to the Semi-finals. They must keep winning, though.

Scotland Men remain unbeaten after dominating Austria and winning by 10-2 after only 6 ends. They scored 7 shots in the first 2 ends to finish the game as a contest.

England Men lost 5-12 against Czechia, mainly due to one bad end, losing 5 shots in the 4th end, to make life too difficult for themselves to recover from that. They share bottom place with Austria, both sides looking for their first win.

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Scotland Women soared up the table with two comfortable wins, by 8-1 against Estonia and by 9-2 against Lithuania. They now sit in 4th place on 4 wins, behind Switzerland, Italy and Sweden, who have all already qualified. There are 3 teams on 3 wins - Denmark, Norway and Turkey - who will be a danger to Scotland 's hopes of progress.

The Scottish team now have to play Italy at noon tomorrow, then Norway at 7am on Thursday.

Scotland Men actually managed to lose a game in this competition today after 18 consecutive wins. They fell 7-10 to Italy after an extra end, but still are equal top on 5 wins alongside Germany and Italy. The Scots were definitely below their usual high standard and it's maybe just as well to get their poor game out of the way now.

Scotland have a tough game tomorrow at 7am against Germany, followed at 5pm against Czechia. They finish against Sweden on Thursday at noon in a potential decider.

England Men had another tough day, losing 1-11 to Switzerland after only 6 ends.They are still waiting on their first win and are anchored to the foot of the table with Austria.

They have a good chance to break their duck as they play Austria at 5pm tomorrow. This is sandwiched between games against Sweden at 7am tomorrow and finally Germany at noon on Thursday.

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Scotland Women edged Italy out by 9-5, winning the last 2 ends to pull ahead. Tomorrow's game against Norway will be a qualification decider as far as these 2 teams are concerned. If Scotland win, then they will qualify unchallenged, but if Norway win they will draw level with the Scots on 5 wins and head them on the countback. Even if Denmark and Turkey join them, then I'm certain Norway will still be favourites to go through. A win please and nobody else can catch them.

Scotland Men won today by beating Czechia 10-2. It leaves tomorrow's game against Sweden irrelevant to the Scots as they ensured qualification today. Sweden will still be interested though as a win would see them through as well. Three places have to be filled and there are 5 teams in contention - Italy, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Switzerland.

England Men lost twice today - 3-8 against Sweden and then 2-7 against Austria, results which relegate them to the "B" Division. They have found it hard going against the top teams and last year's promotion was maybe as good as it gets for them.

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Scotland Women made it into the Semi-finals with a 5-4 win over Norway in a really tense, close game this morning They now play Sweden with Switzerland playing Italy in the other Semi-final, both at 5pm tonight.

The Bronze Medal Game will be on Friday at noon with the Gold/Silver Game at 8am on Saturday.

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My posts are a bit haphazard as I was curling last night and at lunchtime today (1 loss and 1 win), so I'm not able to follow these games as much as I'd like. In fact I had to stop one of my team telling me last night's results so I could watch the games on i-Player just now.

Anyway, Scotland Women were beaten by Sweden in the Semi-final last night by 4-6 in a game that could have gone either way right up to the end. This qualified them for the Bronze Medal Game against Italy this afternoon, which they duly won by 6-4, in a game which Scotland built up a good lead of 6-1 after 7 ends which they successfully defended. This was a really good, strong performance from the Scots, who come away with the Bronze Medal, which they should be pleased about.

Scotland Men did even better, winning 11-7 against Sweden to qualify for the Semi-finals and knock the dangerous Swedes out of the competition. They were always in the lead and it took a score of 3 shots in the last end to shake them off. The Scots would now play Switzerland, with Germany playing Norway in the other one. Scotland proceeded to beat the Swiss team by 10-8, in another game where they were never behind, this time taking an extra end to reach the Final against an impressive Germany.

Tonight's Bronze Medal Game is Norway v Switzerland at 5pm with the Gold/Silver Game at 1pm tomorrow.

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In the Bronze Medal Game, Norway defeated Switzerland by 7-4, with Norway's 3 shots in the 4th end being the difference. In the Gold Medal Game, Scotland Men had their title taken away, losing 7-9 against Germany in an intriguing Final. Germany's victory was down to scoring in consecutive ends twice - in the 2nd and 3rd and also in the 7th and 8th. Scotland will be disappointed, but a Silver Medal is still an excellent return.

MEDAL WINNERS - MEN
GOLD - Germany
SILVER - Scotland
BRONZE - Norway

RELEGATION - MEN
Netherlands and England
As an aside, I was speaking to an ex-England internationalist last night, who won promotion to the "A"Division and then was relegated, and he said that the gap between the "A" Division teams and the "B" Division teams is huge. For most teams, promotion to the top division is a poisoned chalice.

MEDAL WINNERS - WOMEN
GOLD - Switzerland
SILVER - Sweden
BRONZE - Scotland

RELEGATION - WOMEN
Estonia and Hungary