Team Canada sailing along at Wheelchair Worlds
Team Canada continues to set the
pace at the 2013 World Wheelchair Curling Championship in Sochi, Russia.
Skip Jim Armstrong (Cambridge,
Ont.), backed up by 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.), picked up two more wins
on Monday at the Ice Cube Curling Center to improve to 5-0 in the 10-team
round-robin competition, two wins clear of the pack.
In the early draw against China’s
Haitao Wang, the Canadians set the tone early by scoring three in the first end
and three more in the fourth en route to a 9-5 victory.
Canada then capped its perfect day
with a 7-3 win over Slovakia’s Radoslav Duris. Again, Canada got off to a fast
start with three in the first end, then took control for good in the middle
ends with two in the fourth and single-point steals in the fifth and sixth
ends.
At 5-0, Canada is alone on top;
Patrick McDonald of the U.S. is also unbeaten at 3-0, while Scotland’s Aileen
Neilson, the lone female skip in the field, is at 3-2.
While the Canadians are taking aim
at a third world championship in four years, they’re also gaining valuable
experience at the Ice Cube, which will be the venue for the 2014 Olympic and
Paralympic curling competitions.
“It’s a
wonderful venue here,” said Gaudet, who’s hoping to curl for a third Paralympic
gold medal in 2014. “Accessibility is great and the ice is wonderful. So we’re
really looking forward to hopefully being back here next year.”
While
Canada is in solid position for a playoff spot (the top four teams will advance
to the playoffs), Gaudet noted that the playing field is much more level than
it used to be.
“I think
it (the game of wheelchair curling) has evolved incredibly fast,” she said.
“There isn’t much of a gap any more, we’ve all take our game to another level.
We’ve come out to play every team with the same amount of effort. We are all
playing 100 per cent and it is great to see.”
Team Canada faces a mid-week
showdown for its only game on Tuesday when it takes on McDonald’s unbeaten U.S.
team at 9:30 a.m. Sochi time (12:30 a.m. EST).
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