Three teams book playoff spots at Wheelchair Curling Worlds

The Canada's wheelchair curling team lost its first match of the tournament against Sweden (7-8). © • World Curling Federation © • World Wheelchair Curling Championship Sochi 2013

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“We knew before the game that we had to make a lot of draws today, so we were prepared for that.”

Canada, Sweden and USA have qualified for the final stages of the World Wheelchair Curling Championship in Sochi, Russia this week.

With one day of round robin play still to go at the Ice Cube Curling Centre, the same venue for the Sochi 2014 Games, the focus will be on who fills the fourth and final playoff spot.

Sweden won both their games on Wednesday (20 February), beating Canada 8-7 in the morning and Slovakia 8-2 in the rescheduled session from earlier in the week.

“We knew before the game that we had to make a lot of draws today, so we were prepared for that,” Swedish skip Jalle Jungnell told World Curling.

“I think we were very good in the first end with our draws. We got a grip on them. It seems like we had control of the game. But as usual we like to make things a bit exciting. So we had one end when Glenn (Ikonen) missed one and I missed one and then they got the three.”

Despite the tough loss for the Canadians, they went on to win their afternoon game against Finland, 8-2.

USA picked up another two wins with the help of ski Patrick McDonald, who helped the Americans escape from the Finns in a close 8-7 win. USA then went on to beat Korea, 7-3.

China also won both their games and kept themselves in the mix for the final playoff spot. Haitao Wang’s team won their morning game against rivals Korea 9-4 and then beat Norway 7-4 at night. Afterwards, Wang said he had been really nervous all day as so much was at stake. With a 4-3 mark at the Championships and two games still to play, Wang said he had to keep focused.

Hosts Russia won their game against Scotland 2-1 but they were beaten in turn 9-5 by Norway and sit on four wins and four losses. After being defeated by the hosts, Scotland went on to lose their game against Slovakia, 5-2.

The Koreans are still looking for a win and avoid relegation to the next World Wheelchair Championship qualification event set for autumn 2014.

Following the round robin stages, playoff games will begin on Friday (22 February), with the bronze and gold-medal games schedule for Saturday.

Qualification points for the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games will be awarded at the end of the Championships.

Standings after 10 round robin sessions:

*- Denotes team has already qualified for playoff round

1. Canada 7-1*

2. Sweden 6-1*

2. USA 6-1*

4. China 4-3

5. Russia 4-4

6. Finland 3-5

6. Scotland 3-5

8. Norway 2-5

8. Slovakia 2-5

10. Korea 0-7