China claim final wheelchair curling playoff spot

China will join Sweden, Canada and USA in the playoff round at the Wheelchair Curling World Championships in Sochi. 22 Feb 2013

China defeated Russia, 8-3, in the fourth-place tiebreaker at the Wheelchair Curling World Championships in Sochi.

ⒸWorld Curling

By IPC

“I think we have been going through the same ups and downs as pretty much all the teams."

Sweden and Canada will meet in the 1v2 playoff at the Wheelchair Curling World Championships on Friday (22 February) in Sochi, Russia, while the USA will face China in the 3v4 playoff game.

China defeated Russia, 8-3, early on Friday in a tiebreaker to claim the final playoff spot.

Having won their final two games of the round robin (8-3 against China and 10-8 against Finland), Sweden emerged with the same win-loss record as Canada. But because Jalle Jungnell’s side beat Canada, the Swedes take the top spot.

“We had our moments when we’ve played well and we’ve been struggling a bit too,” Canadian skip Jim Armstrong told World Curling following the round-robin stage.

“I think we have been going through the same ups and downs as pretty much all the teams. We struggled a little (Wednesday), we struggled actually in the middle of this game (Thursday), but got the result we needed. Hopefully we can get some momentum going now into the weekend.”

The USA finished the round robin stage in third place at 7-2 after winning their game against Russia, 5-4, and then falling to Scotland, 7-5.

In other tiebreakers on Thursday, Russia defeated Scotland, 7-2, and Slovakia beat Finland, 8-4.

Slovakia and Finland will also play a tiebreak on Thursday evening to decide 7th and 8th place ranking and also Paralympic qualification points.

Korea and Norway finish this year’s championship in ninth and 10th place, respectively, and face relegation to the next World Wheelchair Curling qualification event.

Korean skip Haksung Kim, speaking through their team interpreter, explained that his team’s poor performance this week could be due to the fact that they had a 27-hour journey to Sochi ahead of the event and took several days to get adjusted to the time change and recover from the trip.

Qualification points for the Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games will be awarded at the end of the Championships, which conclude on Saturday.

Standings after round robin stage

1. Sweden 8-1

2. Canada 8-1

3. USA 7-2

4. China 4-5

4. Russia 4-5

4. Scotland 4-5

7. Slovakia 3-6

8. Finland 3-6

9. Korea 2-7

10. Norway 2-7