For Immediate Release
Feb. 17, 2013
Team Canada knocks off defending champs at Wheelchair Worlds
Team Canada strengthened its hold on
first place at the World Wheelchair Curling Championship with a victory over
the defending champs on Sunday at the Ice Cube Curling Center in Sochi, Russia.
The Canadians — skip Jim Armstrong
(Cambridge, Ont.), third Dennis Thiessen (Sanford, Man.), second Ina Forrest
(Armstrong, B.C.), lead Sonja Gaudet (Vernon, B.C.), alternate Mark Ideson
(London, Ont.) and coach Joe Rea (Prince George, B.C.) — improved to 3-0 in the
10-team round-robin with an 8-5 win over the host team from Russia, skipped by
Andrey Smirnov, who won the world title last year in Chuncheon, South Korea.
Canada found itself down 4-3 through
five ends, but rallied to score three in the sixth end on an Armstrong draw to
the four-foot, and then put the victory away with a deuce in the eighth and
final end.
“The
Russians certainly did put us under a bit of pressure there,” said Armstrong,
who’s looking to win his third world title in four years. “They played very
well. We gave them opportunities and fortunately they didn’t convert them all.
If we were going to stumble they were ready to pick it up and take it away.”
Armstrong
had high praise for the performance of the Russians.
“It is
absolutely amazing how far Russia has come in that short time,” he said. “I
have got to speak well for their coaching and obviously the support within the
country. They won last year and full marks for it and they are a force to be
reckoned with.”
The afternoon draw at the Wheelchair
Worlds (Canada had the bye) was postponed due to ice conditions at the Ice Cube
Curling Center, which will host the curling competitions at the 2014 Olympic
and Paralympic Games. This is the first curling event to be staged at the
venue. The World Curling Federation announced that the draw will be rescheduled
for later in the week
Canada is scheduled to play two
games on Monday, at 9:30 a.m. Sochi time (12:30 a.m. EST) against China’s
Haitao Wang and at 3:30 p.m. Sochi time (6:30 a.m. EST) against Slovakia’s
Radoslav Duris.
Live scoring and standings from the
2013 World Wheelchair Curling Championship can be found at: http://wwhcc2013.curlingevents.com/
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