CANADA PREVAILS OVER MEDALLISTS

Olympic gold, silver curlers fall to unbeaten Jones at world championships

Team Canada went on a nice little spree and picked up matching bookends on Wednesday.

Back-to-back 8-4 victories over Sweden and South Korea — the gold and silver medallists at the Pyeongchang Olympics — left skip Jennifer Jones with the only undefeated team at the World Women’s Curling Championship.

But even with an 8-0 record that gives Canada 21 straight victories at the worlds dating back to Rachel Homan’s clean sweep last year in Beijing, the current wearers of the red Maple Leaf are not about to get ahead of themselves.

“It’s better than the opposite, right?” second Jill Officer said when asked about the boost of two victories over top title contenders. “But what do we have, four games left? We can’t really let up. It’d be nice to finish strong, so we’re in a good spot, hopefully, going into the weekend.

“We just have to be conscious of it. We went out there and did what we could today and it obviously worked. But now we have to keep it going.”

In handing Sweden (8-1) its first loss, Canada was up by a pair after the first two ends, then scored multiple points in the fifth (two) and seventh (three) before the handshakes at the end of eight.

“This is one loss,” Swedish skip Anna Hasselborg said. “We will take a lot from this game and refocus on tomorrow’s games.”

In the afternoon draw against South Korea’s “Garlic Girls,” a seventh-end measurement that meant a big two points instead of one fell in favour of Team Jones and proved to be the pivotal point. Canada was trailing the South Koreans 4-3 after six when Jones nudged a shot next to the red and yellow rocks that were already covering part of the button. When the measurement proved it was a scoring shot, the crowd started its loudest and most consistent “Go Canada Go” chant of the week.

Jones went on to steal one in the eighth and two in the ninth.

“That was a really close one ... I wasn’t sure,” Jones said of the momentum-swinging call. “But I thought I threw a good shot regardless. That was a huge point, to change that game for sure.”

The top two teams get an automatic berth into the semifinals on Saturday, while those landing in spots 3-6 have to play in qualification games that morning.

With 6-2 records, South Korea and Russia are tied for third. Canada plays Russia on Thursday morning and 2-7 Italy at night.

“Jennifer Jones is a world champion and an Olympic gold medallist and she was making incredible shots,” South Korean skip Eunjung Kim said through a translator. “And she has a lot of control. But also we were doing the best that we could.”

Kim claimed she’s unconcerned that the two losses put her in peril of failing to grab a top-two spot. The first tiebreaker is head-to-head meetings.

“The number of losses isn’t that big of a deal,” Kim said. “We played really hard and we played well. Now what we’re going to be focused on is the next game and everything ahead of that.”

When Jones was asked if she thought the win over South Korea was her team’s best game of the tournament, she did not play along.

“Not really,” she said. “Early we kind of struggled a bit with the draw weight. But I thought we again finished strong. We’ve just got to get those starts a bit better.”

In the morning draw, U.S. skip Jamie Sinclair had the chance to do her team and Canada a big favour with last rock in the extra end against South Korea, but she was heavy with her shot and suffered a 9-8 loss.

“It was a good game,” said Sinclair, who was born in Anchorage, Alaska, but grew up just outside of Ottawa. “Obviously, the extra end didn’t go as we planned and we had a rough (third) end where we gave up three. So it was a good battle-back.”

The Americans were right back at it in the afternoon with a crucial game against China. An 8-4 win evened their record at 4-4 and kept their playoff hopes alive.

“This is our first world championship and we feel we have a shot against any team,” Sinclair said. “I think it’s anybody’s game, whoever shows up at that time.”

The way things are setting up, the Canada-U.S. showdown in the last draw of the round robin could have serious consequences.

“That’s going to be quite the game,” Sinclair said. “It’s Friday night, it’s going to be packed. Canada vs. U.S., it’s Military Appreciation (night) and the base here is both Canadian and American, so a bunch of them are going to be coming out.

“It’s going to be an insane atmosphere. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”