COVID leaves world curling championship in limbo

The men’s world curling championship remained in a holding pattern just short of its finish line in Calgary on Saturday after positive tests for the COVID-19 virus.

Four members of three international teams tested positive for the virus in “exit” tests before departing Canada. They did not show symptoms of the coronavirus.

A playoff game and two semifinals were called off Saturday. The world championship is scheduled to conclude today with the gold and bronze-medal games.

Four additional teams were in close contact with the infected individuals.

The World Curling Federation and Curling Canada awaited tests conducted on the remaining five playoff teams on Saturday to determine if the championship could resume at WinSport’s Markin MacPhail Centre.

“We’re trying to get this done,” said Scott Arnold, the WCF’s head of development.

“We’re doing everything in our power to do that, but we have to wait for the testing to see if we actually have that available to us.”

Athletes and team personnel were quarantined in their hotel rooms Saturday.

Shortly after Canada’s Brendan Bottcher was eliminated from contention by Scotland on Friday night, the WCF announced infections had been detected among participants and suspended the competition.

“Obviously gutted,” said Nolan Thiessen, Curling Canada’s director of broadcast, marketing, innovation, event presentation and athlete liaison.

“Friends, colleagues, teammates, our broadcast partners, just completely gutted, but we’re going to figure out what happened and see if we can still complete the season.

“Health and safety comes first and we’ll figure out the championship side of it later.”

Alberta Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada approved Curling Canada’s plan to host events in a controlled environment walled off from the public.