 After more than a year of training and anticipation, Canada's Kadriana and Colton Lott stepped onto the ice at the 2026 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, securing their first win on Saturday afternoon. The Lotts claimed a 6-4 victory over South Korea's Seon-Yeong Kim/Yeongseok Jeong at Centre Sportif Sous-Moulin. Leading by two in the eighth during their power play, the Gimli, Man., duo executed a straightback double, blanking the end and sealing the win. This strong start was exactly what the Canadians hoped for after earning the right to represent Canada over a year ago. "Usually, a big event like this, you're nervous to start and nervous to see what the ice is going to do and feel like," Kadriana said. "It was good to have a strong start. We do notice there are areas that we're going to work on, but now we feel more comfortable knowing what the ice is doing going into tomorrow." Eager to compete with the Maple Leaf on their backs, the Lotts returned to the world championship for the second time, having reached the playoffs in 2024. That experience has fueled their motivation for a deeper run this week in Geneva's nine-game round robin. The team ramped up training in recent weeks after Colton's impressive men's season, which included winning the 2026 Montana's Brier with Matt Dunstone and earning silver at the 2026 LGT World Men's Curling Championship. Canada started with the hammer and capitalized when South Korea rolled out, giving Kadriana a draw for three and an early lead. Her draw weight proved crucial again in the fourth end, freezing on South Korea's two counters. South Korea's miss allowed Canada to steal one and take a 5-1 lead at the break. "I liked that we did lock in on our draw weight pretty well," Kadriana said. "That's going to make you feel comfortable going into each game if you have that in your back pocket because mixed doubles is such a drawing game. We made a lot of key shots that we had to, and Colton made a couple of high, heavy ones that got us out of trouble or kept it clean." South Korea narrowed the gap, scoring two on the power play in the fifth end and threatening to steal in the sixth. However, Kadriana responded with a heavy hit to score a single and preserve Canada's lead. "Kadriana's shot in six was a very hard score," Colton said. "To even get one point and not give up a steal was hard to do. We were not even half an inch from giving up a steal. She hit right where we needed to, and that just kept the ball rolling and didn't give them the momentum." Canada has the evening off before returning to the ice Sunday for two games: first against Finland's Team Lotta Immonen/Markus Sipila (1-0) at 4 a.m. (all times Eastern), then facing the U.S.A.'s Rach Kawleski and Connor Kauffman (0-1) at 1 p.m. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Full Scoreboard | Play Fantasy Pick'em! | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After more than a year of training and anticipation, Canada's Kadriana and Colton Lott stepped onto the ice at the 2026 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, securing their first win on Saturday afternoon.
