ALMATY – Sweden’s women’s and Norway’s men’s teams have won the bronze medals on the penultimate day (Monday 6 February) of the curling competition at the Winter Universiade being held in the Almaty Arena, in Kazakhstan.
Following a 4-7 defeat to Canada in Monday morning’s semi-finals Isabella Wranaa’s team bounced back to beat Switzerland, 6-3, in the women’s bronze medal game.
Sweden’s win was helped largely by a steal of three points in the third end, which opened the scoring, after two blank ends. Three single points each were exchanged between the teams in the remainder of the ends, but it was the third end score of three that proved the difference between the teams.
Switzerland won a tie-breaker, 6-4, on Sunday (6 February) against Great Britain to secure the final women’s play-off place, but lost out to Russia in the semi-final, 7-8, in an extra end.
Russia and Canada women will meet in the gold medal final at 09:00 on Tuesday (7 February).
On the men’s side, Steffen Walstad’s Norwegian team lost to Great Britain – who still have a perfect record at this championship – 8-9 in the semi-finals. However, a score of three points in the second end and two in the seventh helped Norway to a 7-3 victory over Czech Republic in the bronze medal game.
Sweden men beat Czech Republic, 8-6, in the semi-final. Sweden and Great Britain’s men’s teams will meet in the gold medal game at 14:00 on Tuesday. Times are Alma-Ata time, six hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time
They said it
Isabella Wranaa; skip, Sweden (after 6-3 bronze medal game win over Switzerland): “It feels great [to win bronze], because we’ve been fourth in a couple of championships before, so, finally a medal and the trend is broken. It has been a great event, with fantastic ice. The village has been fantastic as well and it has been fun being with other students and enjoying other sports.”
Steffen Walstad; skip, Norway (after 7-3 bronze medal game win over Czech Republic): “We have had an up and down week and we didn’t perform at the level we wanted to, so I’m happy to go home with a medal. The Universiade has been really good, it is such a valuable experience to be at an event similar to the Olympics.”
C. MacAllister, WCF Communications & Media Relations Manager
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