[ritchiebaby]

There's a lot of stones to be drawn, guarded and taken out before the Finals in Denmark, but the long and winding road starts in Lohja, Finland on Sunday 7th to Saturday 13th December with the Women's B Championships, where the top 3 teams will qualify for the Finals.

The 22-team field is split into three groups where they will play a round robin within their group. The top two teams in each group plus the two third ranked teams with the better Draw Shot Challenge qualify for the quarter-finals. Then, teams will be ranked 1-8 to decide the quarter-final matchups.
Group A: Australia, England, Estonia, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Romania, Türkiye
Group B: Chinese Taipei, Hungary, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, United States
Group C: Brazil, Czechia, Finland, Hong Kong China, Latvia, Scotland, Spain

England are represented by Lina Opel - still only 15 - (4th and Vice Skip), Marianna Ward (3rd and Skip), Anna MacDougall (2nd), Helena Keggell (1st) with Chloe McNaughton as Alternate and play their first game against Estonia at 12 noon on Sunday, then at the same time against Australia on Monday.

Scotland's hopes rest with Katie Archibald - no not the multi-medalled saddlesore one, but the up-and-coming junior - (Skip), Alex McMillan (3rd), Hannah Young (2nd), Lillia Clarke (Lead) and Cara Thomson (Alternate). They play Spain in their opening game on Sunday at 7am. Their second game is against Brazil on Monday at 5pm.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland won their two opening games, against Spain by 8-3 and Brazil by 10-3. Tomorrow they will play Czechia at 12 noon and on Wednesday they are against Finland at 7am, then Latvia at 5pm.

England beat Estonia 10-4 in their first game, but lost 7-9 against Australia in their second. Losing 7 shots in 3 ends in the middle of the game proved to be their undoing. They take on Japan tomorrow at 7am, and later at 5pm play New Zealand. Wednesday's game is against Roumania at 12 noon.

[ritchiebaby]

A slight stumble from Scotland when they lost 5-8 against Czechia, but they were quickly back on track, beating both Finland and Latvia by 8-3 and 9-5 respectively. They complete the round-robin games against Hong Kong at noon tomorrow.

England lost all three games - against Japan by 4-8 , New Zealand by 4-10 and Roumania by 5-10 - to drift down the table. They will finish their tournament against Turkiye tomorrow at 7am, then later the same day against Italy at 5pm.

[ritchiebaby]

England had a good strong finish today, losing only by 5-6 to Turkiye after an extra end and then beating Italy by 9-5, winning the final 4 ends.

Scotland trounced Hong Kong by 11-1 to qualify for the knockout stages alongside Japan, Italy, Norway, United States and Latvia. The other two places will be filled after the final session tomorrow morning.

The Quarter-finals are scheduled for 2pm tomorrow with the Semi-finals at 8am on Saturday and the Finals following that at 2pm.

[ritchiebaby]

Quarter-final Results
Scotland 6 Italy 5
Spain 3 Japan 8
Norway 4 Turkiye 6
Latvia 2 United States 10

Scotland play Japan in the Semi-finals tomorrow with Turkiye playing United States.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland lost 4-8 after 7 ends against Japan this morning and Turkiye lost 4-7 against United States, again after 7 ends. The losers play in the Bronze Medal Game and the winners play for the Gold and Silver Medals.

In both games the victors won the last 2 ends after being 1 down at the 5th end in a really tight game.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland Women leave Finland empty handed, losing 4-6 to Turkiye. They scored 3 shots in the 7th end to have a slight chance in the last end, but Turkiye saw the game out.

Japan put United States to the sword, winning the Gold Medal Game by 8-1.

England Women were ranked 19th overall and their Men take the stage on Monday against Australia at noon.

[ritchiebaby]

England Men are one of the 20 teams in this junior competition to aim to qualify for the "A" Finals in Taarnby, Denmark in February.

The team are Matthew Waring (Skip), Callum McLain (3rd), Benjamin Gillard (2nd and Vice-Skip), Troy Caunce (Lead) with Niall McLoughlin (Alternate). As I've probably mentioned before Callum plays out of my local Ice Rink on a regular basis with his local Clubs. A really friendly, approachable lad and boy, he can sweep.

Neither ladies' teams qualified, so it's up to the men to do the needful, and they must stand a good chance of being in the top three. They play Australia tomorrow at noon, then Switzerland on Tuesday at noon.

[ritchiebaby]

England's chances look to be out of the window after this evening's stumble against Austria by 2-5 in a game they must have thought they really needed to win. Tomorrow's tough game against unbeaten United States at noon is now promoted to the must-win game, with their final Round-Robin game on Friday at 6am against Hungary a winnable game. I feel that anything less won't be good enough.

[ritchiebaby]

It's going from bad to worse for England. With their Skip, Matthew Waring, ruled out through illness, Callum McLain was promoted to Skip and Alternate Niall McLaughlin was brought in at Third. United States were ruthless in taking advantage, winning 11-1 after only 6 ends.

England's final game at 6am tomorrow against Hungary is largely meaningless (Switzerland and United States with 4 wins each have already qualified) with only pride at stake for both teams.