ITMA

Well, that is Xmas over for another year and life can get back to normal soon. I was down at the curling rink in Kent today and it took me nearly three and a half hours to get home. Normal journey time is one and three quarters – it does not help that my route takes me close to two of the largest shopping centres in England, Bluewater and Lakeside, but what is that drives people mad to spend their money on items that they never even knew they needed until they were going cheap?

Also I hope you have had time to read my last epic. Don’t worry as this one will be considerably shorter as it focuses on just one event – the English Mixed Doubles.

And the title – see the footnote for explanation if you are too young and that might explain!

The ECA Mixed Doubles were held at Murrayfield in mid December – at the same time as the Scottish competition. Thanks to Murrayfield for including us and also for dealing with last minute changes to our programme.

We originally had six entries but injury forced one withdrawal and so the five teams left played a single round robin with no play-offs but tie-breakers would be used if necessary.

On reflection the Championship was decided in the first round of games when reigning champions John Sharp and Jane Clark defeated Sam and Anna Fowler by 7-5, the Fowlers only defeat, though the champions could have been drawn into a tie break if they had not got through 7-6 after an extra end against new entrants this year, Ken Maxwell and Katie Dolan, who eventually finished third with two wins.

The other two teams were Susan Young/James Gibb (one win) and Adam Bermange/Madeleine Tuz (no wins).

So Jane and John will head off to St Paul in April hoping that there will be no ash clouds this year – they got to Chelyabinsk OK last year but John was drafted in to play in the Senior team as well and so had to split his efforts between two very different styles of curling.

But what of the future of Mixed Doubles? The WCF has withdrawn their bid to have it included at the 2014 Olympic Games because it has failed to meet a number of the criteria set by the IOC, one of them being that at least 50% of the Federation’s members should have held a National Championship. Apparently only 18 of the 46 nations reported to the WCF that they had held a Championships though it appeared that some members may not have returned their monitoring form to the WCF to be included in that number!

However, it was agreed at the WCF meetings in Champery to continue to develop the discipline in the absence of any other proposals with the hope of maybe getting it included in the 2018 Olympics.

* ITMA stands for It's That Man Again which was a BBC Radio comedy programme which ran from 1939 to 1949. So why have I used it – well just check out the previous item to see whose picture is included in it and then compare to the above…..

The photo of Jane and John is from last season and is © Skip Cottage