Canada does not get the help it needs, misses curling finals for ladies
BEIJING – Jennifer Jones did not get the help she needed in the final draw of the ladies’ curling-round robin at the Beijing Olympics.
Jones beat Danish Madeleine Dupont 10-4 on Thursday to give Canada a chance to finish in the top four and advance to the semifinals. These hopes were dashed about half an hour later when the other results did not go their way.
“I feel proud but at the same time incredibly sad,” Jones said.
Defending champion Anna Hasselborg from Sweden sealed Canada’s fate when she beat South Korea’s EunJung Kim 8-4.
British Eve Muirhead beat Russian Alina Kovaleva 9-4 and Swiss Silvana Tirinzoni topped Japanese Satsuki Fujisawa 8-4.
Canada ended in a draw with Great Britain and Japan at 5-4 but missed the cut due to poor draw challenge numbers.
Head-to-head record is the first tiebreaker at this World Curling Federation event.
Since all three teams had a 1-1 record against the other, the next tiebreak was cumulative statistics from the draw-shot challenge.
It gave Britain the third seed and Japan the finish.
Great Britain was eighth out of 10 teams (35.27 cm) on the throw before the match – also called the last stone-drawing – while Japan was ninth (36.00) and Canada (45.44) was in last place.
The drag stroke challenge determines which team starts with the hammer. For tiebreak purposes, each team’s numbers are calculated with the two worst throws removed.
Switzerland took the first seeding at 8-1 and will face Japan in the semifinals on Friday. Sweden (7-2) meets Great Britain in the second.
Earlier in the day, Canada’s Brad Gushue ended his round-robin schedule with a 5-2 loss to Britain’s Bruce Mouat.
Both teams had already qualified for the semifinals in the evening.
Gushue would play against Sweden’s Niklas Edin and Mouat would take on the defending champion John Shuster from the USA.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on February 17, 2022.
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