Canada sneaks into playoffs at women's worlds
Einarson rink clinches Olympic berth with win over China
Considering where Canada sat just a few days ago, just reaching the playoffs at the world women's curling championship is a significant accomplishment.
Despite starting the tournament with a 1-5 record, Kerri Einarson's foursome clinched a playoff spot — and a berth in the 2022 Olympic Winter Games for Canada — with a 6-4 win over China Friday morning and some help from Switzerland later in the day.
Canada finished the round robin with a 7-6 record — winning six of the last seven games — and was guaranteed to finish in the top six based on head-to-head records against tied or potentially tied teams.
“Oh man, I can breathe,” Einarson said after a tense day at the Markin Macphail Centre in Calgary. “It's such a relief. I didn't think it would be that stressful, but it was. Looking at our record, when we were 1-5, it was `Oh man, we've got some work to do.' But we never gave up, we kept battling, and I'm so proud of us for putting ourselves into the playoffs.”
Where in the top six Canada ends up — fifth or sixth — and who its opponent will be in today's quarter-final round, was to be determined following the evening draw.
The World Curling Federation confirmed that Canada had clinched after Germany (Daniela Jentsch) lost 8-3 to first-place Switzerland (Silvana Tironzoni) on Friday afternoon.
“It's definitely not the record we were looking for, but it doesn't matter what it looks like, as long as you make those playoffs,” Einarson said.
“It's a whole new spiel now. Our backs are still against the wall, we don't have any more lives left, so we've just got to keep fighting.”
There was a ton of pressure on Canada, which includes third Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard and lead Briane Meilleur, because missing the playoffs would have put the country into a last-chance tournament, next December, just to get into the Olympics.
Now they can focus on winning a world championship medal.
“It's definitely not a cakewalk now,” Einarson said. “The six best teams in the world have made it into the playoffs, so we know what we need to bring to the table to be at our best out there.”
Had Germany beat Switzerland, there were scenarios in which Canada could have been eliminated through head-tohead records and cumulative results of the draw shot competition.
“We definitely need to buy (the Swiss) a round,” Einarson said. “They did us a solid. We definitely appreciate it. They wanted first place, so they did have something on the line, as well.”
Switzerland locked up first place in the round robin with an 11-1 record (and a game still to play), while Russia (Alina Kovaleva) clinched second place at 11-2.
Those two teams will have byes to the semifinals.
Sweden (9-3) was in third place, with a game left, and Denmark was locked into fourth at 7-5, with a game left.
Canada, the United States (Tabitha Peterson) and South Korea (Eun-jung Kim) were all tied at 7-6 and Scotland still had a chance to join them, but the WCF said Canada and the United States would get the final playoff spots based on its tiebreaking criteria.
All six playoff teams clinched spots for their countries in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
China gets a spot as the host nation. The other three spots will be determined in a qualifying tournament in Europe — exact dates and location to be announced — next December.
CZECHS PROTEST
The Czech Republic has filed a formal protest with the WCF over having to play three games on Friday.
Skip Anna Kubeskova's team saw their match in Draw 7 postponed because of positive COVID-19 tests among broadcast staff.
The seventh draw was moved to Friday night, pushing the playoffs back to this morning, and that meant the Czechs had to play three games in one day.
“It was decided in the middle of the competition that we will be the team that's playing three games in a row on the last day, which is very difficult for us, very demanding and very stressful,” said Kubeskova, whose team is out of contention with a 3-9 record. The Czechs had proposed a change in the schedule that would have moved the Canada-denmark game from Thursday morning to Friday night, opening a spot for Kubeskova to play Denmark on Thursday morning instead.
GERMANY PROUD
Germany fell just short of making the playoffs with a 6-7 record, but Jentsch is proud of how her team performed this week, staying in contention despite having only three players.
Two members of the team tested positive for COVID-19 last weekend and were ruled out of the tournament.
“I knew we would still be able to win a few games, but to be honest, I didn't expect six wins,” Jentsch said.