Wild ride for Canadian wheelchair curlers
SOCHI, Russia — Wheelchair curling at the Paralympic Games wrote another bizarre chapter on Thursday.
Misses often outnumber made shots — remember, there is no sweeping to hold shots on line — and there are always a lot of rocks in play in the wheelchair game. But throw in the wildly changing ice conditions caused by the humidity inside the Ice Cube in Sochi and the day was ripe for big ends and crazy scoring.
But the action Thursday almost defied belief.
Canada stole its way to two scoring records in the morning by demolishing Slovakia 16- 0 in a game required to go six ends. It was the most points ever scored since the sport made its Paralympic debut in 2006 in Turin and it was also the largest margin of victory.
Canada, the reigning world and Paralympic champions, moved to 7- 1 with the win. But only five hours after that, the Canadians came off the rink after losing 12- 1 to Finland, which had come into the afternoon draw with just one win.
“What game?” said skip Jim Armstrong when asked if the game was forgotten soon as his rink left the ice. “Gone. There’s nothing to second- guess. You just walk away.”
“It is what it is,” added Armstrong about a day of “joy and humility.”
“I missed a draw in the second ( to allow Finland a steal of five) and we dug a hole that we’d have to gamble to get out of. That’s why you’re seeing some of these runaway scores. You get down and you’ve got to gamble.”
Slovakia bounced back after the shellacking by Canada to lead Russia 4- 2 through six, only to lose 7- 4 and miss the playoffs at 4- 5.
The Russians ( 8- 1) will take on Great Britain ( 5- 4) in one semifinal Saturday morning, while Canada faces China ( 5- 4) in the other. The gold medal game goes Saturday afternoon. CHANGING COLOUR: The silver medal won by sitskier Kimberley Joines of Rossland, B. C., in Wednesday’s women’s slalom turned bronze on Thursday.
It came after the race jury upheld German Anna Schaffelhuber’s appeal of her disqualification after the first run for raising her poles slightly in the start gate.
She had been allowed to make her second run and her tworun combined time of two minutes, 9.53 seconds was finally declared the winning time. Anna- Lena Forster of Germany ( 2: 14.35) now gets the silver medal and Joines ( 2: 15.16) the bronze. Laurie Stephens of the U. S. was dropped to fourth.
“She was in really bad shape this morning, didn’t sleep very well,” German press attaché Marketa Marzoli said of Schaffelhuber, who had earlier won in the downhill and Super G. “We are absolutely glad that this situation is over. Now she’s absolutely happy with gold for the third time.”
Marzoli said it was an Austrian coach who had protested Schaffelhuber’s start, but the Austrian team has now apologized.
QUOTABLE: “It was easy for me. I was just sitting and watching and enjoying the game.” — Russian sledge hockey goaltender Vladimir Kamantcev, who faced just six shots, on his most difficult moment in his country’s 4- 0 semifinal win over Norway.