 Sydney, Canada - In front of a full house with over 4,000 spectators, Canada (photo: Stephen Fisher, World Curling) beat Switzerland by 7-5 to take gold at the BKT Tires World Women's Curling Championship 2024. Canada opened the scoring in the game when their skip Rachel Homan played a draw to score one point. Switzerland responded in the second when their fourth player Alina Paetz played a hit and stay to score two and move her team onto a 2-1 lead. Canada then levelled again in the third when Homan played another draw for a single. In the fourth end Paetz made a hit to score two more points, for 4-2. In the fifth end, Canada played produced a double take-out to score two points and tie the game at 4-4 as the teams went into the break. Switzerland blanked ends six and seven and then nudged into the lead again - at 5-4 when Paetz played a draw for one. Canada made the break-through in the ninth end, when Homan played a split on one of her own stones at the front of the house, nudging one of her own into scoring position and rolling her shooter into the house. This gave Canada three points from the end and a 7-5 lead. Switzerland conceded in the tenth end when they didn't have a shot for two, to give Canada's Rachel Homan her first world title since 2017 and Canada's first gold medals since 2018. This silver medal for Switzerland ended their reign as four-times world champions. After her win, Canada's Homan said, "it's unbelievable. We battled so hard out there, Switzerland played a phenomenal game. We stuck with them right to the end." "That was an unbelievable sweep on that split for three and that was the game right there," she added. The Canadian women enjoyed the support of the Canadian supporters, and about them she said, "I'm never going to forget this crowd. It felt that it was family in the crowd and we"re just so proud we could bring a medal back to Canada." Meanwhile Swiss skip Silvana Tirinzoni said, "It's tough to say (what happened in nine). We wanted to force, our chance to win would have been so much higher, but you have to make all the shots and we didn't. But we have to be happy with our performance, we've played at a very high level all week - today as well." During the closing ceremony, it was announced that the Frances Brodie Sportsmanship Award, voted on by the competitors themselves, went to Angela Romei, from Italy. The medal winning teams were: Gold: Canada - Rachel Homan (skip), Tracy Fleury (third), Emma Miskew (second), Sarah Wilkes (lead), Rachel Brown (alternate), Don Bartlett (coach) Silver: Switzerland - Alina Paetz (fourth), Silvana Tirinzoni (skip and third), Selina Witschonke (second), Carole Howald (lead), Stefanie Berset (alternate), Pierre Charette (coach) Bronze: Korea - Gim Eunji (skip), Kim Minji (third), Kim Suji (second), Seol Yeeun (lead), Seol Yeji (alternate), Shin Dongho (coach) |
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Team Joel Retornaz (Photo: Anil Mungal) had the crowd buzzing in Cortina after knocking off Sweden's Niklas Edin.
