17 March 2024
The BKT Tires World Women’s Curling Championship 2024 opened with two round-robin sessions on Saturday. Along with the world title, this championship is also the first with qualification points available for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milano-Cortina, Italy.
Canada and defending champions Switzerland both won their first two games to share an early lead in the standings.
Switzerland opened with a 7-4 victory over Korea, helped by single-point steals in both the sixth and seventh ends, and then beat United States by 10-3. This game turned on a score of four by Switzerland in the fourth, a steal of three in the fifth, and a further steal of two in the sixth end, when the Americans conceded.
After the game against Korea, Swiss skip Silvana Tirinzoni said, “the first game is always the worst, it’s always a little shaky. The first half was more equal than the second half. They made an amazing shot in the eighth to keep them in the game, so you can’t take anything for granted.”
The Swiss are aiming for their fifth successive title and about that, Tirinzoni said, “I’m not thinking about the fifth title – it’s a long way away.”
In front of a packed home crowd, Canada were up against the 2018 Olympic champions from Sweden in their first game. In the seventh end, Canada held a 5-3 lead when their skip Rachel Homan played a hit to score another two points for a 7-3 lead. Despite a late Swedish revival, Canada went on to win by 7-6.
The Canadians later faced Denmark and won by 7-4. In this game, after moving into a clear 6-2 lead with a score of three in the sixth end, they ran Denmark out of stones in the tenth end.
Afterwards, Canada’s third player Tracy Fleury said, “we had such fun out there today, the crowd’s amazing, the venue is nice, and we’re just trying to enjoy it. Now, we’re just trying to keep the momentum going.”
In the only game of the day for all four teams, Italy beat Estonia by 8-4 after their skip Stefania Constantini had a draw in the seventh end to score three, while Scotland beat Norway, last year’s silver medallists by 6-4, breaking clear with a steal of two in the fifth end for a 4-1 lead.
Find the scores, results and standings here.
Watch the games on The Curling Channel.