CURLING: World Wheelchair Championship Qualifier
begins Saturday
For immediate release: 1 November 2012
Lohja, Finland – The 2012 World Wheelchair Curling Qualification event
gets underway on Saturday at the Kisakallio Sports Institute in Lohja, Finland.
Turkey will make their international wheelchair curling debut at this
event, joining 10 other teams including the Czech Republic,
Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Norway, Poland and
Switzerland.
The eleven teams are set to compete in the event which will run from 3
to 8 November. At stake are the two final places at the World Wheelchair
Curling Championship 2013 which will be staged in the Ice Cube Curling Center
in Sochi, Russia (venue for the 2014 Olympic and Paralympic Games).
It is the third year in a row that the qualification event has been
hosted by the Kisakallio Sports Institute. As Kate Caithness, World Curling
Federation President explains, the Institute is a perfect location for this
competition: “Kisakallio is a first class facility for a wheelchair curling
event – with accommodation on-site, easily accessible facilities and a
fantastic curling venue.” She added: “We must thank the Finnish Curling
Association, the Finnish Paralympic Committee and the team from Kisakallio who
have excelled as hosts of this qualifier for the last two years and I have no
doubt this will be yet another fantastic event for everyone involved.”
Of the eleven teams taking part, there are several athletes with
Paralympic Winter Games appearances to their names, including Kenneth Ørbaek
(Denmark) who competed in Turin 2006, and Jens Jäger (Germany) who competed in
Vancouver 2010.
They will be joined by Norwegian Paralympian
(Turin 2006 & Vancouver 2010) and former World Wheelchair Curling Champion
(2007 & 2008), Rune Lorentsen. He returns to skip Norway in the
qualification event following their relegation from the World Wheelchair
Curling Championship 2012.
Italy also returns to the qualification event following their
performance at the World Wheelchair Curling Championship in Korea earlier this
year.
The event
starts on Saturday afternoon, with the eleven teams playing in a round-robin
through to Wednesday 7 November. The top four teams at the end of the
round-robin will meet in the playoff games for the two qualifying places for
the World Championship on Thursday the 8 November.
The World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2013 will take place at the
Ice Cube Curling Center, Sochi, Russia, from 16-23 February. Visit the event
website: www.wwhcc2013.curlingevents.com
Russia, Korea, China, Slovakia, USA,
Scotland, Canada and Sweden have already
qualified for this event based on the final ranking at the 2012 event.
The 2013 World Championships will be the last opportunity for nations to
gather qualification points for the Wheelchair Curling Competition at the
Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia in 2014. For the list of points visit www.worldcurling.org/curling-at-the-paralympics
The schedule of play and team line-ups for
this event are available online at: www.worldcurling.org/world-wheelchair-curling-qualification-2012
Results and LIVE webcasting will be provided on the Finnish Curling
Association website:
World Curling Federation
Wheelchair Curling Events Facebook:
Go hit ‘like’ to keep updated:
ENDS
Media Contacts onsite:
Katja Kiiskinen
Media Relations
Kisakallio/Finnish Curling Association
Tel: +358 40 5898 194
Danny Parker
Media Relations
World Curling Federation
Tel: +44 7937 057 032
Media - World
Curling Federation
Email: media@worldcurling.org
Tel: +372 592 442
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