Date: 4/24/2013
Women Session 10: RUS-CHN 7-4, JPN-SUI 4-10, SWE-CAN 2-6, GBR-DEN 8-9
Canada confirmed a place in the semi-final line-up when Cheryl Bernard’s team
beat Sweden’s defending Olympic champions led by Anette Norberg by 6-2 in the
tenth session of women’s round-robin play. As Bernard explained, “we were really
just up for it today – they are such a strong team and it really worked for us
today”.
The Canadians were so much in control of this game that they had
the luxury of bringing on their five-months’ pregnant alternate Kristie Moore
for the last few ends. About this move, Moore said “one day I can tell my baby
that it was in the Olympics”.
Despite this loss, Sweden stay in second
place on the rankings. The People’s Republic of China, on five wins but now on
three losses rather than Sweden’s two, went down to Russia by 4-7, much to the
annoyance of their Canadian coach Dan Rafael, who said, “I’m furious. The
problem with this team is that they have no passion. I don’t know who will turn
up – the team that beat Canada or the team that lost to Russia”.
Elsewhere in the session, Switzerland continued their recovery from a poor start
to the tournament by beating Japan 10-4 to move into a clear fourth place, with
four wins, but Britain’s semi-final chances were dealt an all but fatal blow
when they went down by 8-9 to Denmark.
In this game, the British, led by
nineteen-year-old Eve Muirhead started well and held a 6-4 lead after six ends.
But the momentum changed in the seventh, when Denmark took three and a complete
miss by Muirhead in the ninth eventually left her with too much to do, with even
the Danish team being surprised at their win. Their fourth player Madeleine
Dupont later said, “it didn’t seem like we were going to win. Britain played
really well in the first half but we took advantage of some mistakes and stepped
up”.
Germany and the USA sat out the session. These results leave four
teams on three wins – Germany, Japan, Denmark and Great Britain. But while
Germany and Japan have four losses, Denmark and Britain each have five. To have
any chance of survival, these four teams need to win their closing games while
Switzerland would have to lose their games against Germany and USA, who prop up
the table as the only team on two wins.
