Prague Notes 2

So here we are halfway through the week and things are definitely looking up in the English camp as the girls recorded their second win this afternoon against a useful Estonia team, three of whom had beaten the full English team in Champery just a few weeks ago. It was a low scoring game and, without the hammer, England played well to steal ones at the first three ends. However the Estonians responded and had a chance to square the match at 4-4 in the seventh when lying one with last stone to come, but a bizarre choice of shot, which had the Estonian coaches in despair, resulted in them giving us another one and it was a measure for two which just went to them. So it was 5-2 instead and we ran them out of stones.

Earlier the girls had lost to the strong German team, though only in the last couple of ends, and the boys lost to Russia. There had been great celebrations last night after the boys defeated Wales and the girls Slovakia – it may not have been Germany and Russia but the thrill for the juniors of winning their first games in this company was palpable.

In the girls' event the two undefeated teams, Germany and Norway, met this afternoon and it was a tense thriller which was resolved by a very delicate tap-up by Norwegian skip, Kristine Davanger, to break a 3-3 deadlock after seven ends. Italy, Spain and Poland follow next on two defeats after Denmark continued to struggle yesterday, though they bounced back with two wins today over Slovakia and Spain, to leave themselves on three defeats, Poland having inflicted the third of those in a surprise yesterday. This is level with England and Estonia, with Slovakia bringing up the rear and still to record a win. Denmark could still get into the top three and a semi-final place, but it could all come down to their last game against Italy on Friday morning.

In the boys event, Group A is as expected the preserve of Netherlands and Russia, both undefeated after four and three games respectively and Group B is proving as tough as predicted.

France lost both games played until tonight at extra ends, and have just lost a third game to Italy and so are therefore not going to get to the semi-finals, a surprise after coming so close in the final last year. In another shock tonight Poland beat the Czech Republic at an extra end and have become a factor in this group instead of France.

So it could come down to tiebreakers and surprisingly there is currently no room in the programme for two tiebreaker games and when this question was raised at the team meeting the answer was not very satisfactorily answered – cancel the banquet, we have curling to play! And I thought it was only the ECA who failed to programme enough time for tie-breakers!

You can find all the results and standings on the event website here.