The World Wheelchair-B Curling Championship 2019 is set to take place in Lohja, Finland from Wednesday 27 November.
The championship will run from Wednesday until Monday 2 December. Lohja will host 15 international teams from different Member Associations, with three places at the World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2020 being held in Wetzikon, Switzerland – from 29 February to 7 March – being played for.
The 15 competing Member Associations are split into two groups. They are:
Group A: Canada, hosts Finland, Italy, Japan, Poland, Sweden and Turkey
Group B: Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia and United States
The World Wheelchair-B Curling Championship is open to mixed gender teams from World Curling Federation Member Associations that have not yet qualified for the next World Wheelchair Curling Championship.
Round-robin play begins on Wednesday 27 November at 16:30 and concludes at 09:30 on Sunday 1 December.
The qualification games featuring the runner up from each group facing the third-placed team from other group will also take place on Sunday at 18:00. The winners of those games progress to the semi-final stage to face the group winners.
Those semi-final games take place on Monday 2 December at 09:00 and are followed that afternoon at 14:30 with the bronze and gold medal games.
All three medal winning teams then receive a place in the World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2020.
All times are Eastern European Time (EET), which is two hours ahead of Universal Coordinated Time (UTC).
Canada are skipped by Paralympic gold medallist Mark Ideson and features, other Paralympic gold medallists, Ina Forrest, playing in third position, and Dennis Thiessen, as alternate alongside Paralympic bronze medallist, Marie Wright, playing second.
United States, are skipped once again by Stephen Emt, with his Paralympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 teammate, Meghan Lino, playing lead.
Sweden are represented by their 2018 Paralympic Winter Games team, led by skip, Viljo Peterson-Dahl.
You can follow the World Wheelchair-B Curling Championship 2019 and the World Curling Federation on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo and by searching the hashtags, #curling #WWhBCC2019
