[ritchiebaby]

These Championships take place in Stevenston, Scotland from Saturday 1 March to Saturday 8 March. There will be the usual Round-Robin where everybody plays everybody else. The Top Two will go straight to the Semi-finals with the other four teams playing off on the morning of Friday 7 March to decide the other two Semi-finalists. The Semi-finals will be on Friday evening and the Finals will be on Saturday 8 March.

England will be represented by their Qualifying team from November - Stewart Pimblett, Jason Kean, Julian Mattison and Karen Aspey with Jean Guild being promoted to Alternate at the expense of George Potts. They start tomorrow against Latvia at 14.30, then Norway at 19.30.

Scotland's team will be Hugh Nibloe, Gary Smith, Austin McKenzie and Jo Butterfield with Alternate Keith Gray. Their first and only game on Saturday is against China at 14.30.

[ritchiebaby]

England suffered defeats in both of their two games today. Firstly against Latvia by 5-8, then against Norway by 6-8. Tomorrow they play the rotten-to-the-core USA at 14.30. Oops, sorry, it's only all the president's men who are rotten. I apologise unreservedly to the USA curlers, who I'm sure are pretty decent. If only the Don would be able to follow my fine example.

Scotland beat China in a remarkably low-scoring game by 3-2 in the last end. Tomorrow's two games are against Japan at 09.30 and the aforementioned USA at 19.30.

[Lord Snooty]

Trump probably thinks only able bodied athletes should compete in Wheelchair events. Only the fittest and strongest should represent the greatest country in the universe.

Enough of this woke nonsense. MAGA!

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland started off well today, beating Japan 7-5. Unfortunately they then fell 5-6 to USA after an extra end. Their games tomorrow are against Korea at 14.30 and Sweden at 19.30.

Personally I think it's all England's fault because of their humbling of USA with a 10-1 victory in the previous session. They play China tomorrow morning at 09.30 and then Italy at 19.30.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland responded well today by handing Korea their first defeat by 7 shots to 1 in only 6 ends, but fell by the wayside again, losing 5-9 against Sweden after being tied at 4-all at the halfway stage.

England reversed that trend, being beaten 1-6 by China, after tying at 1-1 after 5 ends, but recovered to beat Italy 6-4 in a very tight game.

Canada, England and Scotland have their own little tournament tomorrow with Canada v England at 09.30, then Canada v Scotland at 14.30 and finally England v Scotland at 19.30. The whole Championships are very tight so far, with all 12 teams still in with a realistic chance of qualifying for the later stages. Any team gaining two wins tomorrow would do their chances a world of good.

[ritchiebaby]

No advantage to anyone in today's games.

England beat Canada by 10-5, scoring 4 shots in the last end to secure the win. Canada then impressively beat Scotland 12-6, scoring 4 shots in the 7th end to secure the win. In the final session Scotland beat England by 7-5, neither team scoring any more than 2 shots at a time.

So one win each leaves them in the same relative position as before. Tomorrow Scotland play Latvia at 09.30 and Italy at 14.30. England play Sweden at 14.30 and Slovakia at 19.30. These games will tell us a lot about their chances of qualification.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland set off like a sprint hurdler this morning, scoring 5 shots in the first 2 ends to lead Latvia, but stuttered over a few of the hurdles to be pegged back to 5-4 after 6 ends. They then finished with a burst of 4 shots in the 7th end to win "comfortably" by 9 shots to 5. But, as seems to be their usual style, they suffered in the next game against Italy, losing 4-7 despite being well in the game all the way.

England also started off well, beating Sweden 7-6, although they were 3-6 down with 2 ends to play. Like the Scots, they fell away badly in their second game, losing heavily by 2 shots to 10 against Slovakia.

In the grand scheme of things, Korea and China have already qualified with 7 wins out of 9 games. Scotland have 5 wins and England have 4 wins. There are 6 teams in total who will qualify, meaning 4 places are still available, with all 10 teams having a chance to be one of the four.

Scotland play Norway (on 5 wins) at 09.30 and Slovakia (on 3 wins) at 19.30 to complete their programme with England taking on Japan (on 3 wins) at 09.30 and finally Korea (on 7 wins) at 14.30.

[ritchiebaby]

After leading 2-1 against Norway after 5 ends, Scotland fell away to lose 2-5 to make life difficult for themselves. To compound that loss, they were then thumped 6-11 by the current form team Slovakia, leaving themselves on 5 wins.

England were just as wasteful in their first game, leading 4-0 against Japan, only to lose 4-7. However they did redeem themselves with a vital last end score of 3 shots to beat Korea 7-5 to draw level with the Scots on 5 wins.

The qualifiers for the later stages are China with 9 wins, Korea on 8 wins, Sweden with 7 wins, Canada and Norway on 6 wins plus Slovakia from the teams on 5 wins, courtesy of beating both Scotland and England in the last couple of days.

The draw should be Canada v Norway and Sweden v Slovakia, both at 10.00 tomorrow, the winners going forward to play China and Korea respectively at 18.00.

[ritchiebaby]

In the Qualification Games, Slovakia squeezed past Sweden by 4-3 and Canada squeezed past Norway by 6-4 after an extra end.

The first Semi-final was similar with China squeezing past Canada by 5-4, but Korea turned the squeezing button off, winning 6-2 against Slovakia.

The Finals resulted in another squeezathon with Canada beating Slovakia 4-2 in the Bronze Medal Game, but any notion that the Gold Medal Game would be the same was demolished by China demolishing Korea by 14-3.

Final Results
GOLD - China
SILVER -Korea
BRONZE - Canada

Scotland were placed 7th and England 8th, both with 5 wins.