Sweden wins Nordic battle to keep the top position
Three round-robin games took place at the National Aquatics Center on Wednesday morning. The table tops Sweden met Norway, Slovakia took on the reigning Paralympic champions China, while Estonia played against Korea. Sweden, China and Korea took wins in these matches.
Norway against Sweden
Paralympic silver medalists Norway started the match better against current world silver medalists, Sweden, and steal a single point in the first end.
Sweden scored a single in the second after an exact equalizer by their skipper Viljo Pettersson-Dahl.
In the third end, Norway scored two points after two fine draws by the ships Ole Fredrik Syversen and a missed selection attempt by Sweden in between.
In the fourth, Sweden made two right-backs and leveled the match to 3-3 at half time.
In the fifth final, Norges Syversen missed his last selection attempt and gave up a steal of two and gave Sweden a 5-3 lead.
In the sixth, Sweden’s Pettersson-Dalh made a fantastic triple draw with his last stone, which forced Norges Syversen to pull one, against three Swedish stones. The Norwegian jumper came up with his attempt and refrained from stealing one.
Norway narrowed the gap to two points after taking one in the seventh.
In the eighth, Norway lined up to steal several points, and Pettersson-Dahl faced three Norwegian counters before his double selection attempt with his last.
He could only remove one of them, gave up a steal of two and put the game to an extra end.
In the extra end, Sweden finally made two and won the match 8-6.
After the extra victory, Pettersson-Dahl said: “It was a bit stressful of course. It’s always a bit nervous at the end of the matches, and it was close. “
Speaking about the key moments in the game, he added, “Maybe the triple jack in the seventh was one of the key moments, because they pushed us in that end. And also one end when I made a double, so they could not go for two.”
Speaking of his feelings about their performance so far, he said, “Fantastic. We’ve played pretty well so far, so we just hope we can keep up and stay focused.”
China vs. Slovakia
Before this match, China and Slovakia shared second place in the table with four wins and two losses.
Slovakia stole a point in the first end when the Chinese jumper Wang Haitao could not remove both Slovak counterattacks with his double selection attempt.
In the second end, China came on the board with two points, then they forced Slovakia to take a single in the third.
When they went into the fourth finish, the team was a 2-2 draw. After an excellent pull by the Slovak fourth player Peter Zatko to sit stone shots behind the cover, Wang tried a difficult double withdrawal.
He did not succeed, and China gave up a single.
After the break, China came out strong and scored three points in the fifth end to regain the lead with 5-3.
In the sixth, China stole two more points when Zatko’s selection attempt did not work.
In the seventh, Slovakia made two setbacks, narrowing the gap to two points before the end of the eighth.
In the eighth final, Slovakia could not line up two points to make a draw, and China did not have to throw their last stone. The reigning Paralympic champions eventually won 7-5.
After the match, China’s second, Zhang Mingliang said: “I think we played the match quite well, we were not in a hurry. I actually think we made our shots and controlled the time quite well.”
Speaking about their upcoming round-robin game, he added, “I think the most important thing is that we have an even mentality and we should still take the following games seriously.”
Estonia v Korea
Both of these teams were looking for their third victory in the Paralympic Games in this match-up.
Korea had a draw two points in the first end, but their skipping Jang Jaehyuk fell short with his last stone and they had to settle for one.
After extinguishing the second end, Estonia gave up a steal of two points in the third when their ship Andrei Koitmae destroyed on a guard with his last selection attempt.
Estonia came on the board with a point in the fourth and the team went to the break with 3-1, Korea leading.
After making one in the fifth, Korea stole one in the sixth when Estonia’s Koitmae was heavy with its last draw attempt.
Estonia put another single on the board in the seventh and made the score 5-2 in favor of Korea.
In the eighth, Estonia ran out of stones and Korea won the match 5-2.
Session 12 results: Norway 6-8 Sweden; Estonia 2-5 Korea; China 7-5 Slovakia
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