CURLING: Finland, Norway, Latvia and Italy
reach play-offs at World Wheelchair Curling Qualification
For immediate release: 7 November 2012
Lohja, Finland – Finland will play Norway in
the 1v2 play-off and Latvia will play Italy in the 3v4 play-off following the
final day of round-robin play at the World Wheelchair Curling Qualification
event.
Finland
beat Italy 8-7 in the morning session after an extremely close game. With the
lead constantly changing throughout the game, Finland stole two points in the
sixth end which helped them on their way, but needed an extra end to seal the
victory.
Following
the game, Finnish skip, Vesa Hellman, was delighted to reach the play-offs. He said: “We thought Norway would be the
favourites here this week but it looks like Italy and Finland have done best so
far. Now we will finish at worst second position but we feel very good about
this because we have achieved our goal of getting into the play-offs. This
gives us two chances of qualification – if we don’t win the first (play-off
game) we will get another opportunity.”
In the
afternoon Finland sealed first position in the standings after defeating Japan
7-2. With Norway, Latvia and Italy all finishing the round-robin with a record
of 7-3, their final positions were determined by their draw shot challenge
average as all three tied teams had one win against another one of the tied
teams.
The final
standings mean that Finland will face Norway who won their final game of the
round-robin 8-4 against Italy. After a slow start to the week, Norway skip Rune
Lorentsen was pleased his team’s form continued to improve game by game. He
said: “It feels incredible to win that last game. We have struggled the whole
tournament – against Latvia we beat them 11-1 two weeks ago in another event
and lost to them this week. But now we, and our girl (Sissel Loechen)
especially, have played very well in the last two matches, which is very
helpful. We are still a little up and down - we have had two bad games in the
front end of the round-robin, but I feel that we are on our way. It will be
50-50 in our game against Finland I think, but we have two chances for
qualifying now, so that’s ok.”
Latvia also
continued their recent form, first beating Japan 10-8 in the morning and then
Turkey 10-2 in the afternoon. Afterwards, Latvia coach, Artis Zentelis,
acknowledged the progress the team have made over the last three years. He
said: “This is our third World Championship Qualification tournament – the
first we lost all our games, the second we won a few games but still finished
near the bottom, but this year has been good for us. We’ve had a lot of
practice, perhaps three to four times per week, so there’s a professional
attitude to the game and it looks like we are seeing the results.”
He added:
“Of course the week was very good for us. It started very nicely with some
tough games against Switzerland and Norway, and we got some nice wins. We lost
twice in the last two weeks to this Italian team so we have some info about
them. Hopefully tomorrow we will find our game and we are ready to beat Italy.”
In the
other games, the Czech Republic ended the competition on a high, with an 8-4
victory over Switzerland in the morning and a 11-5 win against Germany in the
afternoon. Although Germany had won their morning game 5-4 against Poland,
their loss to the Czech’s ended their chances of the reaching the play-off
stages.
Denmark
also finished well, beating Turkey 13-5 in the morning, which included steals
of two and three points in the third and fourth ends, before they went on to
beat Poland 7-2 in the afternoon game.
The 1v2 and
3v4 play-off game will be played at 10:30 local time (EET). The winner of the
1v2 play-off will automatically qualify for the World Wheelchair Curling
Championship 2013 while the loser of the 1v2 game will play the winner of the
3v4 play-off game at 16:30 (EET) to decide the final qualification spot.
Full results from the round-robin can be seen
here:
Standings
after Round-Robin (games
played/wins-losses):
1. Finland
10/9-1
2. Norway
10/7-3
3. Latvia
10/7-3
4. Italy 10/7-3
5. Czech
Republic 10/6-4
6. Germany
10/6-4
7.
Switzerland 10/5-5
8. Japan
10/4-6
9. Denmark
10/2-8
10. Turkey
10/1-9
11. Poland
10/1-9
The World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2013
will take place at the Ice Cube Curling Center, Sochi, Russia, from 16-23
February.
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
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
Contacts:
Katja
Kiiskinen
Media Relations
Kisakallio/Finnish
Curling Association
Tel: +358 40 5898 194
Danny Parker
Media & Communications
WCF Office: +44 1738 451 630
Mob (UK): +44 7709 340 896
Mob (Overseas): +44 7937 057 032
Skype: danielparkerwcf
The Thunder Bay Wheelchair Curling Association plays
Sunday afternoons at 3:30 p.m. Anyone 18 years of age or older with a physical
disability can join in to enjoy the sport of curling from a wheelchair. Basic
curling instruction is provided by experienced curlers.