Canada sits fourth at world championship
Locals Thurston and Molnar on the team
Canada sits in fourth place at the 2024 World Wheelchair Curling Championship in South Korea with a 4-3 record after a pair of losses Tuesday.
Canada, featuring Dunsford’s Jon Thurston of the Peterborough Curling Club throwing last rocks and Bobcaygeon’s Chrissy Molnar as alternate, fell 7-5 to the United States and 8-2 to Scotland on Tuesday and have now dropped three of their past four games after starting at 3-0.
“We made a lot of shots today,” Canadian skip Mark Ideson told curling.ca. “We were just on the wrong side of the inch.”
Ideson believed his crew played well in its afternoon tilt with the United States (3-4), skipped by Matthew Thums, but also gave credit to his opponent.
“We had a solid game and so did the U.S.,” said Ideson. “They had some key makes in key moments and had us on the ropes the whole game. It was a great battle from start to finish.”
Coming home tied with hammer, Thurston needed to navigate a tricky port in hopes of finding the four-foot (1.2-metre) for the win but ticked a guard and came up short. It was an untimely miss for Canada — one of only a handful throughout the game.
Misfortune carried into the evening draw against Hugh Nibloe and the defending bronze medallists from Scotland (1-6) when a hit for one rolled out and left three Scottish stones counting. In the end, it was a deficit the Canadians couldn’t overcome as Scotland went on to win its first game of the tournament.
Despite the results, Ideson stayed confident in his team’s approach and leaned on their experience in world championships to pull positives out of a winless day.
“Yeah, just a couple tough games midweek, sort of like kilometre 21 of a marathon,” he said. “It would’ve been nice to pick up a win today but we’re still in this thing, we’re in a good position, and we’re in control our fate. We’ll prioritize rest and recovery tonight and get back out there first thing tomorrow.”
Viljo Petersson-Dahl and the Swedes (5-3) have won five straight after adding two wins Tuesday against Estonia (1-6), skipped by Ain Villau, and Czechia (2-5), skipped by Dana Selnekovicova.
Last year’s gold-medallist China (5-2), skipped by Haitao Wang, dropped its second game of the round robin to Hyeonchul Lee’s team from Korea (5-2), but rebounded with a win over formerly undefeated Latvia (6-1), skipped by Ojars Briedis.
Italy (4-3), skipped by Egidio Marchese, split its games Tuesday, winning over Jostein Stordahl’s team from Norway (4-3) but losing to Slovakia (3-4) and skip Radoslav Duris.
On Wednesday, Canada meets Latvia and Czechia.
The top six teams from the round robin advance to the playoffs, with the top two receiving a bye while the remaining four play in the first round. The gold- and bronze-medal games will take place Friday.
On Monday, Canada lost to China, 6-4. China defeated Canada in the 2023 final. Canada rebounded to beat Estonia, 7-5. Canada took five points in the second end then stole one point in the third and fourth ends. Estonia did try a comeback, taking two points in the fifth end and one point in the seventh and eighth ends.