Norway and Sweden men chase top-ranked Scotland
Scotland retained their clear lead at the top of the rankings in Monday afternoon’s fourth session of the men’s round robin game at the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2021, in Lillehammer, Norway. The Scots beat the Netherlands 9-2 in just six finishes.
Scotland started with the last stone advantage and used it to score four points in the first end. The Netherlands struggled after that, and three more points for Scotland in the sixth final convinced the Dutch, who are still the only team not yet won, to let in the match.
When he came from the ice, Bruce Mouat from Scotland said: “We play well. We enjoy our stuff out there and take a lot of pictures. We curl up to a very high standard right now. It has been pretty good so far and we hope to continue our “I do not think we are too far from our best.”
Behind the Scots, Norway is in joint second place in the rankings after defeating Germany, 7-4, in this session. In the sixth final, and already led 3-2, Norway’s skipper Steffen Walstad played a draw in the house to score two points and move his team’s advantage to 5-2, on its way to its 7-4 victory.
Defending champions Sweden met Switzerland in this session. The first half of the match was goalless and the team was 1-1 after four finishes.
After this, Sweden put the first two-point score on the board in the fifth end and then followed it up with a steal of two in the sixth to take a 5-1 lead.
There was no way back for the Swiss after this and they released after eight finals, where Sweden finally won 7-2.
Afterwards, Sweden’s skipper Niklas Edin said: “It’s a lot about getting the hammer first of all, then scoring the first point and then taking the first two-point lead in the match. It usually wins the game, so we know how important every moment in the first few finishes can be. This time it went our way, so we had a pretty simple, controlled game. “
This result places Sweden in a shared second place in the table, next to Norway.
Denmark met Finland and took control of the match, with a score of two points in the first end. The Danes took the lead 5-2 at the break. Then, in the seventh end, the Danes knocked out a Finnish stone to put another four points on the board to complete their second straight win, with a score of 9-3.
Italy met the Czech Republic and in the fourth end, Italy’s jumper Joel Retornaz played a controlled tap-up to score two points and take a 3-1 lead.
In the eighth end, Retornaz played a draw on the button to get two more points to a 6-4 lead. Then, in the tenth end, he pulled the last stone of the game on the button to score one more point and win, 7-5.
Afterwards, Retornaz said, “We had two big matches yesterday and did not win either, so we knew we had to take a step back today and win. We have to stay in the rankings if we want to make it to the playoffs. We did well “It was very tight and the Czechs played very well.”
Speaking of his final draw, he added, “That’s what the jump should do. You have to feel like you have that draw to the four feet inside. You have to hit the four feet and that’s what we did. It was a team shot.”
See all broadcast games from Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2021 online, exclusively at The curling channel.
Men’s workout four results: Netherlands 2-9 Scotland; Italy 7-5 Czech Republic; Sweden 7-2 Switzerland; Denmark 9-3 Finland; Germany 4-7 Norway.
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