Media Relations Officer
Håkan Sundström
IDROTTSHUSET, Mårbackagatan 19 S -123 43 FARSTA, Sweden
E-mail: hakan.sundstrom@curling.se
Fax: +46 8 604 70 78 * Telephone: +46 8 683 30 16
World Women Curling Championships to start in Paisley, Scotland
Expanded to 12 teams and new format for the play-off system
The 2005
World Women Championships will start on Saturday, March 19 in Paisley
outside
Glasgow, Scotland. The venue is The Lagoon Leisure Centre in Paisley where
12 teams from all over the world will compete until the final day, Easter
Sunday March 27. The 12 teams that have qualified are:
Defending
champion Canada, last year´s runner-up Norway, bronze medal nation
Switzerland, semi finalist USA, home team Scotland, Sweden, Japan, Italy,
Denmark, Finland, Russia and the newcomer to world championships, China.
Twelve
teams instead of traditional ten is one new thing this year. The new
format of the play-off is the second news.
Now the
page system will be used where the two best teams of the round-robin will
play in semi final 1. The winner will go directly to the final and the
loser will get another chance to the final. They will play the winner of
the game between team ranked 3rd and 4th of the
round-robin.
The last
time the World Women´s Curling Championship was a separate event was in
1988 and then the venue was Summit Centre in Glasgow. By then the Swedish
team was skipped by 21 year old Anette Norberg who led her team to a
bronze medal at her first World Championship. Now Anette is back in
Scotland, skipping her 4th time European Champions. Anette is
the only curler remaining from the 1988 World Championships. After the
success of European Championships of course the Swedish team belongs to
the medal favourites in Paisley.
Canada is
the defending champion nation and Canadian curlers always belong to the
favourites. This year they will be represented by a new team from
Winnipeg, Manitoba skipped by Jennifer Jones. Her team contains half of
Connie Laliberte´s team that finished second at the Ford WCC in Brandon
1995, Cathy Gauthier and Cathy Overton Clapham.
Norway´s
Dordi Nordby, runner-up last year and World champion skip in 1990 and 1991
is back to play her 18th world championships since 1982. Switzerland´s
Mirjam Ott finished runner-up in the European championships in Sofia last
December.
Results,
information of the games and pictures will be published on the WCF
website:
http://www.worldcurlingfederation.org/CurlHome/Results/2004-2005/WCC-W/
Website of
the host committee:
www.womens2005worlds.com
