Slovakia Qualifies for 2012 World Wheelchair Curling Championships

Slovakia is through to the 2012 World Wheelchair Curling Championship for the first time ever after a dramatic last stone victory over Italy in the first of the qualifying playoffs at the World Wheelchair Qualification event in the Kisakallio Sports Institute in Lohja, Finland.

After a missed peel by Italian skip, Andrea Tabanelli, with his first stone in the eighth end, Slovakia was able to draw a second point behind a guard. Tabanelli then attempted a take out with his final stone and missed, giving the Slovaks a steal of two and a place at the Championships in South Korea. Final score 10-9.

Italy will now play Finland in this afternoon’s (10 November) second qualifying play-off game. Finland won 13-2 against a German team who lost skip, Jens Jäger, to a hand injury in their final game on Wednesday evening. Caren Totzauer moved up to skip.

Following their victory, Slovakian skip Radoslav Duriš said: “It’s very impressive, it’s a very big surprise. There were highs and lows in this game for both teams but in each end we thought we could do it. The win for us is amazing.

“We lost four games in a row in the middle of this event and at that point we said ‘Houston we have a problem!’ but since then we have won every game. It was a dream for us to go to Korea – and now we are going.”

The Qualification event in Finland sees two teams qualifying for the two remaining positions at the 2012 World Wheelchair Curling Championship in Chuncheon City, South Korea.

Slovakia join Canada, Scotland, Norway, Russia, China, Korea, USA and Sweden who have already qualified for this event based on the final ranking at the 2011 World Championship. The 2012 event will be the second opportunity for nations to gather qualification points for the Wheelchair Curling Competition at the Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia in 2014.