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This event is run in tandem with the World Seniors in Sochi, but is being held at the Ice Cube Curling Centre from Saturday 18 April.

A total of 30 teams will take part this year in 3 groups.

Group A consists of Australia; Czech Republic; Denmark; France; Japan; Russia; Slovakia; Switzerland; Turkey and USA.

Group B is comprised of Austria; Brazil; China; Finland; Italy; Latvia; New Zealand; Norway; Slovenia and Sweden.

Group C is Belarus; Canada; England; Estonia; Hungary; Korea; Poland; Romania; Scotland and Spain.

England - Lana Watson and Alan Macdougall

Scotland - Lee McCleary and Judith McCleary

The weekend games

Saturday - England v Estonia, Scotland v Roumania.

Sunday - Hungary v Scotland, Canada v England, Spain v Scotland, England v Korea.

A number of athletes competing this year have won medals at this event in the past, including the 2013 gold medallists Dorottya Palancsa and Zsolt Kiss from Hungary, the 2010 gold medal winner Peter Dron from Russia, the 2014 and 2012 silver medallists Camilla Johansson and Per Noréen from Sweden and the 2014 bronze medallist Irantzu Garcia Vez of Spain.

Switzerland are the reigning champions and are represented this year by Carole Howald, who is a 2015 and 2014 World Women’s Curling Championship gold medallist, in addition to winning the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships last year, all as an alternate. Her teammate, Marc Pfister, skipped Switzerland men to a seventh place finish at the Ford World Men’s Curling Championship 2015 that concluded earlier this month in Halifax, Canada.

Briefly, the game is basically the same as normal, except that teams have only six stones each (instead of eight) and one of those stones from each team is prepositioned on the centreline before each end of play starts. Player one delivers the first and last stones and player two plays the second, third and fourth stones. If they choose to, the two players may swap positions from one end to the next while sweeping can be done by one or both team members.

Friday 24 April will host one tie-breaker game if required, followed by one quarter-final qualification game. All four quarter-final games will then take place that evening. Both semi-finals will take place on Saturday 25 April, followed by the bronze and gold medal games.