[ritchiebaby]

In the game that affected Scotland's chances of progressing, Russia defeated Switzerland by 6-3, moving them up to within 1 win of the other 4 top teams.

In yesterday's games, Scotland were trounced 3-10 by Japan in the morning, losing a 4 in the fifth end to fall way behind and conceded after 7 ends. Meanwhile Russia beat Germany by 8-3 in the same session to join Scotland on 7 wins and 3 losses.

In the following session, Switzerland, Russia and Japan all won, leaving Japan on 9 wins, Russia and Switzerland on 8 wins and Canada and Scotland on 7 wins.

As Scotland played Canada in their final round-robin game, it would turn out to be a winner-takes-all game to decide the 4th qualifying place. Unfortunately Scotland, although always in the game, lost a 3 in the sixth end and a 4 in the ninth end to lose 4-9. Switzerland won their final game to join Japan on 9 wins out of 11 games, with Canada joining Russia on 8 wins. Scotland ended up on 7 wins to finish in fifth place. The Scots undoubtedly had the most difficult finish of all the contenders, but losing all of their last 3 games must be hard to take. The biggest disappointment was losing the first of these to Switzerland after being 5-1 up and they lost their way a bit after that.

Japan now play Switzerland in the 1v2 play-off game tonight and Russia play Canada in the 3v4 game tomorrow morning.

[ritchiebaby]

In Friday's 1v2 game, Switzerland beat Japan 8-4, courtesy of a 3 in the seventh end and a 2 in the ninth end, prompting a concession from Japan.

On Saturday, Russia beat Canada 7-4 after nine ends to qualify for the semi-final against Japan later that night. In that game, Japan eventually overcame Russia after an extra end and reach their first ever World Women's Final.

This left the medal games lining up as follows:-
Gold/Silver - Switzerland v Japan
Bronze/Nae Luck - Russia v Canada

The Russia v Canada game has just finished and in an open attacking game, Russia had last stone in the last end and duly scored 1 shot to win the Bronze Medals, matching their finish last year.

The Gold/Silver match will probably finish around 6pm local time - 1am GMT - so I'll leave the final post on these Championships until tomorrow.

[ritchiebaby]

Switzerland beat Japan by 9 shots to 6 to win the Gold Medals in the Final Game of these Championships. In an extremely competitive game, Japan had led by 1 shot after eight ends but two successive scores of 2 shots gave the more experienced Swiss team victory. Switzerland have won now Gold in the Women's World Championships four times in the last five years and this Swiss team also won in 2014.

The win moves Switzerland move up to 1st place ahead of Canada in the World Rankings. There is then a big gap to a close group of three - Sweden, Scotland/GBR and Russia.


Switzerland - Binia Feltscher, Irene Schori, Franziska Kaufmann and Christine Urech.

Irene Schori also won the Frances Brodie Award, voted for by all the players, to recognise the curler they think best exemplified curling's values and sportsmanship throughout the event.

Medal Winners
GOLD - Switzerland
SILVER - Japan
BRONZE - Russia