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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 B-Division will be held in the Östersund Curling Club in Sweden where 10 women’s and 16 men’s teams will take part.

The ten B-Division women’s teams are: Austria, Czechia, England, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Netherlands (promoted from C-Division), Poland, Slovenia, and Ukraine (promoted from C-Division). The Semi-finals and Final will take place on Saturday 23 November.

The sixteen B-Division men’s teams are: Belgium, Bulgaria (promoted from C-Division), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Israel (promoted from C-Division), Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Türkiye, Ukraine, and Wales. These teams will play in two groups. Round-robin play gets underway on Saturday 16 November, with qualification and relegation games, followed by semi-finals being decided on Thursday 21 and Friday 22 November. The gold medal games will take place on Saturday 23 November.

England Women are regulars Hetty Garnier (Skip and Third), Anna Fowler (Vice-Skip and Fourth), Angharad Ward (Second), Lisa Farnell (Lead) and Alternate Naomi Robinson.

Ireland Men consist of John Wilson (Skip), Kyle Paradis (Third), James Russell (Second) and Craig Whyte (Lead).

Wales Men are James Pougher (Skip), Rhys Phillips (Third), Garry Coombs (Second) and Richard Pougher (Lead).

In fact, all of these players are regulars for their countries and I might have to pinch/acquire their photos from previous years' threads if I can't find any new ones.

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Here are some photos I've (mis)appropriated from last year's thread of the England Women and this year's Welsh Curling FB page, as well as the Irish Men from a 2022 thread.


Their first 3 games are against Germany on Saturday 16th at 12.30pm, Poland on Sunday 17th at 7.00am and Czechia on Sunday 17th at 3.00pm.


Their first 3 games are against Poland on Saturday 16th at 8.00am, France on Sunday 17th at 11.00am and Finland on Sunday 17th at 7.00pm (but you could read that for yourselves - well done, Wales).


Eoin Crossan is included in this photo on the right as Alternate in 2022, but Ireland have not named an Alternate player this year (yet). Their first 3 games are on Saturday 16th against Finland, Bulgaria on Saturday 16th at 5.00pm and France on Sunday 17th at 7.00pm.

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Saturday's results are

England Women - lost to Germany 3-8
Ireland Men - beat Finland 7-6 and beat Bulgaria 9-4
Wales Men- lost to Poland 4-11

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England Women beat Poland 5-4 in a tense game all the way to the end. Unfortunately they then lost 4-9 against Czechia in yesterday's second game. This morning in another tight, tense game they lost to Netherlands by 6-7 after an extra end. Tomorrow England play Ukraine at 12.30pm, with must-win games fast approaching.

Wales Men suffered two defeats yesterday, against France by 1-8 and then against Finland by 5-10. Today they play Bulgaria at 5pm and tomorrow Ireland at 5pm. Again must-win games are the order of the day.

Ireland Men also suffered against France yesterday, losing 4-6 after being 2 ahead with 3 ends to go. They are currently playing Poland with Wales to come tomorrow. Ireland are in a slightly better position, but still have a lot to do.

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Today's remaining results for the two Men's teams are Ireland 8 Poland 4, where the Irish team scored 4 shots in the 7th end to make all the difference, and Wales 13 Bulgaria 6, a high-scoring game where the Welsh were always in the lead, scoring 4 shots in the 9th end to clinch their first win.

These results leave Ireland in a decent position - 3rd with 3 wins, behind Denmark and France. On the other hand, Wales still need to win all of their remaining games - a tall order.

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England Women did the needful against Ukraine today, winning by 5-3 and leaving them only 1 win behind a qualification spot. Tomorrow's games are against Finland at 7am and Austria at 3pm. Thursday's game is against Slovenia at 8am and they finish off against Latvia on Friday at 12.30pm with all 4 games being winnable - 3 wins could easily be enough for them to qualify.

In tonight's local derby, Ireland Men beat Wales Men by 8-5 after 9 ends. Scoring in 3 consecutive ends in the middle of the game gave the Irish a big enough lead to defend successfully, putting them in 2nd position beside France and behind Denmark. Unfortunately the Welsh team are now too far behind to challenge for honours.

Tomorrow sees Ireland play Estonia at 7pm, the same time as Wales take on Denmark. On Thursday at 12.30pm they swap opponents to complete the Round Robin stage.

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England Women continued their winning streak by convincingly beating Finland 10-2 after only 6 ends and then Austria 9-5 in a controlled performance over the full 10 ends. They still lie in 4th position alongside Netherlands and still have a chance to qualify. They have to at least match Netherlands results and also keep Latvia and Slovenia at bay. Both England and Netherlands play Latvia in their final games.

Ireland Men squeezed past Estonia by 7-6, scoring against the head in the last end. Currently in 2nd position, they look favourites to stay in at least 3rd place to qualify, BUT if they lose against Denmark, they might need to glance across the rink to see the scores of Poland and France who are within striking distance.

Wales Men were thumped again, this time by Denmark 11-2. They are finding it tough in the "B" Division and will do well to avoid relegation.

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England Women carried on where they left off yesterday, beating Slovenia 12-7 in a game where they were never behind, but always under threat of being overtaken. Netherlands are the only danger, but a real danger nevertheless as they beat England in the head-to-head.

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England Women did all they could to qualify by beating Latvia 10-8 after an extra end, but unfortunately Netherlands also won 12-5 against Finland. All in all it was a good performance, with the extra end loss against Netherlands proving decisive. They finished in 5th position on 6 wins, the same as qualifiers Netherlands and Poland. Of their 6 wins, 5 of these came in the last 5 games, so they finished well and with a bit of luck might have been playing for a medal and possibly promotion.

Ireland Men had a good spell in the middle of the game against Denmark and ran out winners by 8-6, to qualify in 1st place in Group B and go directly into tomorrow's Semi-finals at 8am. The Medal games will be at 1.30pm tomorrow.

Wales Men lost 8-10 after an extra end against Estonia and now face a relegation play-off against Latvia at 5pm tonight.

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Ireland Men started off well enough against Poland, but fell away in the last 3 ends, losing 4 shots to go down 3-7. The other Semi-final saw a convincing 10-2 win for Denmark over Spain. The Medal Games resulted in a narrow win for Spain over Ireland by 4-3, neither team giving away very much. This game saw the Irish start off badly, taking 6 ends to get a score on the board. Denmark beat Poland in the Gold Medal game by 5-2, again with neither side giving away much.

PROMOTION - MEN
Denmark and Poland

Wales Men saved themselves from relegation, winning 8-3 against Latvia in a game defined by scoring 4 shots in the last 2 ends.

RELEGATION - MEN
Latvia and Bulgaria

PROMOTION - WOMEN
Czechia and Germany

RELEGATION - WOMEN
Finland and Ukraine