[ritchiebaby]

The Mixed Doubles Championships are at the same venue as the Seniors and on the same days. Nowadays this event attracts the really top players from the countries involved, unlike the early days when the second or third choices used it as competition practice to improve their World experience. There are 16 teams drawn in two Groups with the top 3 teams in each Group progressing to the final stages on Friday 2 May.

Scotland
And of course there are Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds, and of course there are photos them in real life on the Scottish Curling website (as well as the Lego models, if you fancy that sort of thing - I don't).



They will play Netherlands at 1 pm today and China at 10pm tonight, that is if you believe the website schedule. Only time will tell.

[ritchiebaby]

Bruce and Jen beat the Dutch Double 10-3 at 1pm this afternoon in convincing fashion. Not that I know anything about fashion. It's all Double Dutch to me. BOOM BOOM.

In tomorrow's game Scotland will play Denmark at 6pm, so you should get an proper daily report by bedtime.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland beat Denmark by 7-3 and, although they were never behind, they still couldn't stretch out a commanding lead. Tomorrow's games are against Finland at 2pm and Korea at 10pm.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland eased their way past Finland, winning 9-2. They are currently well down against Korea, but as the game will finish after midnight, we'll leave that just now. My heart and brain will need a reset.

Their next game will be at 6pm tomorrow against Italy.

[ritchiebaby]

Well, Scotland have gone and done it again. Playing against Korea, who have not won a single game, they went down by 7-10 and never looked like putting much pressure on the Koreans. Losing a 4 in the first end and then again in the 6th end made life too difficult.

Today they were beaten 4-7 in a much more competitive game by leaders Italy, who remain unbeaten on 6 wins. Currently Scotland have slipped back to 4 wins alongside Finland, and behind Canada and Sweden on 5 wins. Only the top three go through.

Tomorrow they take on Sweden at 2pm and Germany at 10pm. With a game against Canada looming on Thursday at 6pm, even one defeat might be enough to put them out of the competition, depending on other results.

[ritchiebaby]

As ever, Scotland relish a really strong challenge and proved it by beating Sweden 7-6 last night with never more than 2 shots in it all the way through. This morning they built on that by winning 7-1 against Germany, winning the first 5 ends. The fact that Scotland have beaten both Finland and Sweden, the only teams that could catch them, means that tonight's game against Canada is meaningless as far as qualification is concerned.

From Group A, Italy, Canada and Scotland have qualified, but in Group B the final qualifiers will only be decided after the final session. Australia, Estonia, United States, Japan, Norway and New Zealand are all in the hunt for the three places.

[ritchiebaby]

After seemingly being out of it in the final game against Canada, Scotland scored 3 shots in the last end to force an extra end, then scored a single shot to win 8-7.

In the other Group, only Australia have definitely qualified. There are 5 teams on 5 wins chasing the two remaining places. Canada will play the second placed team and Scotland will play the third placed team in a qualification game at 2pm tomorrow. Italy and Australia await the winners of these games in the Semi-finals at 10pm.

[ritchiebaby]

The other qualifiers turned out to be Estonia and United States on 6 wins, with Norway only missing out on countback. This left Scotland scoring 4 shots in the first end of the Qualifying Game against United States to lead all the way, eventually winning 7-5. In the other game, Estonia beat Canada by the same score.

Tonight's Semi-finals have just started with Australia playing Scotland and Italy playing Estonia.

[ritchiebaby]

Scotland beat Australia by 9-6 in a win only made comfortable by the Scots scoring 5 shots in the 4th end. They had another slow start but that score turned the game around.

In the other game Italy beat Estonia by 7-6 after an extra end in a ding-dong battle with all the ends going to the team with last stone.

The Bronze Medal Game was a different affair, with Australia only taking 6 ends to beat Estonia by 9-2.

The Gold Medal Game between Scotland and Italy is due to start at 6pm tonight.

[ritchiebaby]

After yet another slow start, Scotland fell at the final hurdle, losing 4-9 to Italy after 7 ends. Although Scotland were down 1-5 at the start of the 6th end, they summoned up 3 shots to be right back in the game. Unfortunately they then lost 4 shots in the next end because of 2 brilliant take-out shots from the Italian duo.



MEDALLISTS
Gold - Italy
Silver - Scotland
Bronze - Australia

With this result, Scotland concluded an extremely productive week at Fredericton, with 3 medals, one of each colour.