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Saturday, April 5, 2014

World Wheelchair Curling Qualification Event will be hosted by Lillehammer in Norway

  
PERTH, Scotland – The World Curling Federation has announced the hosts of the World Junior Curling Championships, European Junior Curling Challenge, European Mixed Curling Championship and World Wheelchair Curling Qualification Event for the 2014-15 curling season.

Tallinn, Estonia will host their first World Championship when they welcome the world’s best junior men’s and women’s teams for the World Junior Curling Championships between 28 February and 8 March 2015.

One men’s and one women’s team will qualify for that event from the European Junior Curling Challenge, with Prague in the Czech Republic confirmed as hosts for the event taking place between 3-8 January 2015.

Denmark will welcome the world of curling back to Taarnby Curling Club for the European Mixed Curling Championship which will be held from 13-20 September 2014. This is an open invitation event for mixed gender curling teams consisting of two male and two female athletes.

The World Wheelchair Curling Qualification Event will be hosted by Lillehammer in Norway from 1-6 November 2014. This event sees the top two teams qualify for the World Wheelchair Curling Championship in 2015 which will take place in Lohja, Finland in February.

The announcements were made following the WCF’s Executive Board meetings which were held at the CPT World Men’s Curling Championship 2014 which are currently taking place in Beijing, China until the sixth of April.

Speaking from Beijing, WCF President Kate Caithness said: “We are excited to be taking our events to these locations and in particular Estonia who will host their first major international curling event and have shown great ambition in recent years by helping develop our sport in Eastern Europe. We are in no doubt that that each of the local organising committees will put on a great show and we look forward to welcoming everyone to these venues next season.”

Looking towards the World Junior Curling Championships 2015, President of the Estonian Curling Association, Fred Randver, said: “We are honoured that the World Curling Federation has given us our first opportunity to host a World Championship event. Curling has grown considerably since the sport was introduced to our country more than 10 years ago and this Championship will mark a key milestone in the progress we have made. Over the next few months we will be working hard to prepare for these Championships and look forward to welcoming the world to our country next February.”

Taarnby Curling Club has hosted several World Curling Championship events in the past, most recently the European C-Group in 2013 and the World Senior Curling Championships in 2012.

Chairman of the Local Organising Committee for the European Mixed Curling Championship, Johannes Jensen, said: “We are delighted that the World Curling Federation has placed its trust in us once again. Following the success of previous World Curling Federation events in our club, we will look to once again put on a fantastic competition for everyone to enjoy.”

After being awarded the World Wheelchair Curling Qualification Event, Pal Trulsen, General Secretary of the Norwegian Curling Association, said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to test out our venue ahead of the Winter Youth Olympic Games which will be taking place in this same curling venue in February 2016.”

He continued: “In Norway, we are always looking to increase awareness of the various disciplines of curling and this event will give Lillehammer the opportunity to see wheelchair curling shortly after the hugely successful Paralympic Winter Games held in Sochi earlier this year.”

The Czech Curling Association will host the European Junior Curling Challenge for the sixth time, having held it as recently as 2013.

On the host award, President of Czech Curling Association, David Šik, said: “We are honoured to be given the opportunity to host the European Junior Curling Challenge again. It is always a wonderful opportunity for Czech curling fans, to see for themselves, some of the best young curlers in Europe and we strongly believe that it will be a successful event. Of course, we would also like to invite fans from around the world to join us in Prague for this event.”

Further details about all of these and other WCF events can be found here: www.worldcurling.org

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Gold-medal Paralympian gets a warm welcome home in Cambridge

Gold-medal Paralympian gets a warm welcome home in Cambridge

Waterloo Region Record
By
           
CAMBRIDGE — The children got to feel the weight of a gold medal hanging from Jim Armstrong's neck and get his autograph. Neighbours, friends, residents of the community and political dignitaries extended their congratulations.
                           
It was all part of a warm "welcome home" reception hosted at the CIBC Cambridge Banking Centre on Saturday for Armstrong, a wheelchair curling Paralympian who recently returned from the Winter Games in Sochi with a gold medal for Canada.
                           
"It is such a pleasure to be so welcomed into this community," the gracious 63-year old Armstrong said as he greeted people at the ceremony.
                           
Armstrong was once a successful able-bodied curler. He began curling at the age of eight, and by the age of 22 he made his first Brier. He was inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame in 1990. He is the only curler to have won the Ross Harstone Award for Sportsmanship and Ability three times.
                           
But what followed was a series of physical problems, tragedies, controversies and comebacks. He's had knee and back problems and numerous surgeries. In 2003 he was in a car accident that crushed his already-injured knee and permanently sidelined his career as an able-bodied athlete. He had to sell his dentistry practice.
                           
It all seemed to happen in "one fell swoop," and Armstrong says it left "a pretty big void" in his life.
Then, in 2007, he was invited to join Team Canada's wheelchair curling program.
                            
"I can't even put into worlds how wonderful that has been for me," Armstrong said at the Cambridge event. "It was a new sport for me, and I enjoyed it and it reinvented me."
                           
He's had personal tragedies and controversies. He lost his first wife to cancer in 2009 and in 2010, he and his son had a brush with the law over their involvement in smuggling counterfeit erectile dysfunction drugs that were being sold by his son.
                            
But he survived. He skipped the men's squad to gold in Vancouver in 2010 and recently repeated the performance at the Sochi Paralympics Games. He remarried and has moved from Vancouver to Cambridge where he says "there is an intimacy of a smaller town that you just can't beat."
Armstrong wants to keep going.
                           
"I don't know if I can make it again in another four years, but I would love to be sitting here right after the South Korea games in 2018," he says.
                           
Carmen Bettencourt of Cambridge, who knows Armstrong and lives in his neighbourhood, was among the members of the community who turned out to congratulate him on his gold medal. She says she sees Armstrong going out every day to the gym in his wheelchair, and knows how hard he works. She cheered for him as she watched the games from Sochi on television.
                            
"I am very proud of him," she says.
                           
Armstrong says he's probably practised more in the last few years in a wheelchair than he did in the last 10 years of his able-bodied career. He says the every athlete in the Paralympics has a "humbling" and unique story about how they confronted the challenges of disability and made their way to the world stage.
                           
He enjoys the public appearances and being able to talk to students. He says children are not shy in asking questions. "The kids today are so much more knowledgeable than when I was a kid and also way more accepting and way more interested," he says.
                           
The event in Cambridge was one of 30 "welcome home" events that CIBC hosted in communities across the country for the athletes who helped Canada to an impressive third place finish in the number of gold medals won at the Sochi Paralympic Winter Games.
                           
"They inspired us all and made us proud to be Canadian," said Michelle Lee, a CIBC general manager. "You showed us how hard work, dedication and perseverance can lead to greatness no matter what challenges you face."
                           
Cambridge MP Gary Goodyear presented Armstrong with a certificate and said "while you were in Sochi, the world was watching and we were here at home cheering you on."
                           
Armstrong says his advice, especially to young people facing disabilities and challenges, is to strive to be the best they can be. "The opportunities are endless," he says.
rsimone@therecord.com