 Gangneung, Republic of Korea - Sweden beat Korea by 8-3 in Sunday morning's women's gold medal final of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018, in the Gangneung Curling Centre, to take their Member Association third Olympic title. Korea's silver was a first medal for the host nation at either Olympic or curling world level. Korea opened the scoring with a single point in the first end. Then, with their country's two-times Olympic skip Anette Norberg in the audience, in the company of King Carl XVI Gustaf, Sweden blanked the second end before their skip Anna Hasselborg hit out a Korean stone in the third end to score two points for a 2-1 lead. Sweden - skip Hasselborg, third player Sara McManus, second Agnes Knochenhauer and lead Sofia Mabergs, supported by alternate Jennie Waahlin and coach Maria Prytz - moved further ahead with a single point steal in the fourth end when Korean skip EunJung Kim got her angles wrong on a run-back shot. Kim got her angles wrong again in the fifth end, this time on a double take-out attempt, to give up another single point steal and put Sweden into a 4-1 halfway lead. In the sixth end Korea - skip EunJung Kim, third player KyeongAe Kim, second SeonYeong Kim, and lead YeongMi Kim, supported by alternate Chohi Kim and coach MinJung Kim - scored again, this time taking a single point when their skip Kim was forced to tap up and stay with her own stone for one point. This reduced the Swedish lead to 4-2, but the Swedes moved further ahead in the seventh end when, after they split the house early in the end, their skip Hasselborg eventually had a hit and stay for three points to extend their lead to 7-2. Korea could only score one point in the eighth end, through a nose-hit by skip Kim and then, when Hasselborg succeeded with a hit and stay to give Sweden one point from the ninth end, for an 8-3 lead, Korea conceded. The bronze medal won by Japan earlier, added to the Korean silver, made this a historic, landmark Olympic Winter Games for Pacific-Asia curling, while Sweden, now with a third gold medal to add to a silver and bronze won in previous Games, have consolidated their position as women's curling most successful Member Association. |
A five at the opening end of their first-ever match together in a major international competition sent Katie McMillan and Angus Bryce on their way to a dominant victory over the USA at the ACE & Company World Mixed Doubles Championships in Geneva.
