[ritchiebaby]

This year's Championships have already started in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada with Scotland back to being independent.

Unfortunately, this year's team are very inexperienced at World level and has definitely lowered expectations from curling followers. The Women are Rebecca Morrison (Skip), Gina Aitken (Vice-Skip), Sophie Sinclair (2nd), Sophie Jackson (Lead) and Fay Henderson (Alternate). Only the 2 Sophies have played at World level before.

To make matters worse, Rebecca Morrison and Fay Henderson have both tested positive for Covid on the eve of the event and Beth Farmer has been called up to play at the last minute. Being forced to play defending champions Switzerland in their 1st game with only 3 players proved too difficult for the Scots, who lost 1-12 against the ruthless Swiss.

In their next game, still with only 3 players, Scotland faced Czech Republic who also had an eventful time, thanks to their last-minute participation following the RCF being ruled out after a "special sporting operation" by World Curling. It was a much more competitive game, but still a loss by 9-10.  Hopefully, Beth Farmer will arrive in time to play in the remaining games, the first of which will be against Denmark at 02.00 tomorrow.

Then they play Japan at 16.00 tomorrow and Sweden at 02.00 on Tuesday.  There will be no easy games for the Scots and it will prove to be a steep learning curve.

[ritchiebaby]

And the saga continues with more Scottish team members (but apparently not necessarily the team players) testing positive for Covid, forcing Scotland to withdraw from the Championships. Arrangements to fly the team home will be made as soon as they receive the all-clear from the Canadian authorities.

All of Scotland's opponents will now receive automatic wins for the unplayed games.

[Lord Snooty]

Oh dear.

[ritchiebaby]

It is indeed most unfortunate, but it's only a sign of the times with our apparent belief that avoidance of the virus is no longer important. In fact, it's all around my curling world at the moment, although I have managed to avoid it.

[Lord Snooty]

Aye, great idea to lift all the restrictions. People now think it's all over. But it isn't. We know loads who have just got it in the last fortnight.

[ritchiebaby]

Here's a quick recap on the Championship highlights. Firstly on Friday, Japan returned a number of positive Covid tests, but it was expected that their players who tested negative would be able to play their remaining games. However the Japanese decided to forfeit their final game due to ongoing Covid concerns as the result wiould have made no difference to the overall standings.

In the final round-robin standings, Switzerland completed their programme with 12 wins out of 12, well ahead of Canada, Korea and Sweden on 9 wins. These 3 could not be separated on games won, and Korea went through directly to the Semi-final on the Draw Shot Challenge. United States finished on 8 wins and Denmark had 7 wins.

In the Qualification Games on Saturday, Sweden beat USA 8-6, thanks to scoring 4 shots in the last end, and Canada beat Denmark by 9-8. In the Semi-finals the same evening, Switzerland beat Sweden 7-5 and Korea beat Canada 9-6, after scoring 5 shots to 0 in the last 3 ends. Now of course I am completely neutral in reporting these events, but I do admit to a certain satisfaction in both Canada and United States losing leads to end their chances of Gold and Silver.

In the Bronze Medal Game, Canada did seem to learn their lesson, although they did do their best to repeat the feat, eventually beating Sweden by 8-7 after an extra end. In the Final, Switzerland won a fully deserved Gold Medal by beating Korea 7-6 with the last stone of the game.

Hopefully there will be no repeat of the Covid problems when the circus circus moves on to Las Vegas - yes, that one! - for the Men's World Championships on 2 April for an 9-day residency.