[ritchiebaby]

Play begins in the World Senior Curling Championships in Sochi, Russia on Saturday 18 April 2015, with 13 women’s and 24 national men’s teams competing for the world titles. In both men's and women's competitions, semi-finals will be played on the morning of Saturday 25 April with bronze and gold medal games taking place later that day. Scotland are the reigning Women's Champions with Canada being the 2014 Men's Champions.


The Iceberg Skating Palace Training Rink seen above, used by figure skaters to warm up during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, will play host to the curlers.

The women will play in two groups.
The yellow group includes the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Russia, Scotland, Sweden and Switzerland.
The pink group is comprised of Canada, England, Italy, New Zealand, Slovakia and USA.

Scotland - Barbara Gibb (Fourth, Skip), Carol Scott (Third, Vice-Skip), Elinor Ritchie (Second), Margaret Archer (Lead)

England - Judith Dixon (Fourth, Skip), Joan Reed (Third, Vice-Skip), Valerie Saville (Second), Deborah Higgins (Lead)

As an aside, 3 of the English team play regularly at my local ice rink (in Scotland) and I find it hard to believe they are over 50!

With far more teams, the men are divided into three groups.
In the red group: Canada, Czech Republic, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Scotland.
The blue group includes Denmark, England, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Turkey.
The black group is comprised of Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland and USA.
More details about the Men's teams will follow tomorrow.

At the same time as staging the World Senior Curling Championships, Sochi will also host the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2015 (separate thread to follow) in the Ice Cube Curling Centre, the venue for the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games curling competitions.