The world already knows but hey!

Team Russia - World Champions

So after 4 days of trying to figure out the why, I give up. Today I am just going back to reporting on the sport and hope everyone understands that for whatever reason someone found the need to try and embarrass me and what I was trying to do. Did it have repercussions?  Yes, trust that was built was destroyed in a second and assumptions of who people thought I was came rushing back in without question. Fine, I have to live with that and I can only continue to show those you my readers we are doing what we said we would; reporting the stories, results and thoughts of wheelchair curlers without much personal opinion being expressed. As stated to me so pointedly; the article that was produced on Team Canada and the program was “Mean spirited ill informed journalism....” but believe me or not I did not post the article and will try and rebuild the trust that was expressed. I need people to fully understand that. I will say in closely of this item that whoever left me the wonderful comment on my personal blog; “pack it in already”.  I have heard you but believe the need to continue outweighs the events and believe people take it for what is was and now admitted to the police; a personal attack on Chris Daw based on personal opinion in an attempting to slander and destroy character. SO the charges of slander and defamation are filled and we move forward.

That said we move on……

As we all know RUSSIA has won worlds for the first time. This truly shows the world what steps this country has taken to prep for the Paralympic games in just two years time in Sochi.  As reported by the WCF:

“In front of a home crowd at the Uiam Ice Rink, the Koreans (Skip Hak Sung Kim, third Seoung Won Jung, second Mi-Suk Kang and lead Byeong Il Noh) took their only point of the game in the first end. From then on, the Russians, (Skip Andrey Smirnov, third Marat Romanov, second Aleksandr Shevchenko and lead Svetlana Pakhomova) took advantage of missed shots by their opponents to win the game.

In the third end, Russia stole three points when Kim was heavy with a hit and roll and rolled out of the house. In the fourth end, Kim’s last stone hit a guard and gave the Russian’s another two points. The Koreans shook hands at the end of the seventh end, giving Russia the 2012 title.

“We feel very good, excellent actually, to have this win, we can’t wait to get back to Moscow and the celebrations that we will have there!” said Smirnov. “The Koreans gave us a hard game. It was not as simple as the score looks. But we are very happy to win the gold medal.”

“Today’s game didn’t work out as well as we thought,” said Kim, “my team were all a little tight, they couldn’t loosen up. Nervousness made our shots go wrong and we didn’t make the shots we thought we would make, and we really struggled.”

He added: “We need to try and read the ice a little better that was critical in this tournament. Second of all, our players need to learn how to enjoy themselves more. If you concentrate too much on winning, then your body tightens up so we need to learn how to relax. As a skip, I want to try and make an environment where the players can relax a little more.”

Gold medal	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total
Korea	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	X	X	1
Russia	0	1	3	2	1	1	1	X	X	9

Winner of the Sportsmanship Award, Hak Sung Kim, KOR with Chief Umpire Linda Kirton
All Photos: KOSAD / Young Bok Kim

Hak Sung Kim, Skip of Team Korea, was awarded the 2012 World Wheelchair Curling Championship Sportsmanship award. Kim was nominated by his fellow competitors. They were all invited to nominate a player at the event who, in their view, best exemplified the traditional values of skill, honesty, fair play, sportsmanship and friendship.”

Russia has set the stage for the future of our sport as did surprise team Slovakia, a team that came out of nowhere to show the world what is being done in other countries.  Teams will and will continue to find ways to increase performance levels much like Korea did in there exploration of preparation training and coaching in Canada.  Other teams will reassess how to improve including Italy and Norway. It will be interesting to see what Scotland does now with Tony Zummack.  Tony was hired to take over coaching and the performance of the team must be somewhat disappointing. I hope they provide him with a chance to continue to work with the team as I firmly believe that 1 year with a team is not always enough to show what can be done.

Again, congratulations to our new world champions - Russia