20 February 2023
World Junior Curling Championships set to begin in Fuessen
The first World Curling event of 2023, the World Junior Curling Championships, will be held in Fuessen, Germany, from 25 February to 4 March.
This will be the 48th edition of the championship on the men’s side and the 35th edition for the women.
Ten men’s and ten women’s teams representing their national Member Associations will compete.
Men’s competition
The men’s field consists of: Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Korea, Norway, Scotland, Switzerland, Türkiye and United States.
The reigning champions, Scotland, bring a new team to the world stage, skipped by Orrin Carson. Second player in last year’s gold medal winning team, Scott Hyslop, supports the current team as alternate.
Last year’s silver medallists, Germany, will again have skip Benjamin Kapp, third Felix Messenzehl and second Johannes Scheuerl in their line-up. They will again attempt to make it to the top of the podium, this time, on home ice.
Norway’s skip Lukas Hoestmaelingen and fourth player Grunde Buraas are Youth Olympic champions in the mixed team event from 2020.
Switzerland’s fourth player, Philipp Hoesli is Youth Olympic champion in the mixed doubles event and bronze medallist in the mixed team event from 2016. He is also a world junior silver (2019) and bronze (2018) medallist.
China, Italy and Türkiye men secured their places at the event by medalling at the World Junior-B Curling Championships 2022 in December.
Women’s competition
The participating teams in the women’s field are: Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and United States.
Japan junior women are the reigning champions. Three of their team members — skip Miura Yuina, third Ogihara Eri and second Ueno Yui — were members of last year’s gold medal winning team as well.
Sweden won silver in 2022 on home ice in Jonkoping. Now their team — with one change in their line-up — try to climb one step up on the podium.
Norway’s third player Nora Oestgaard and second thrower Ingeborg Forbregd are Youth Olympic champions from 2020 in the mixed team competition.
Four players from the Scottish team earned fourth place at the FISU World University Games earlier this year, representing Great Britain. Their third player, Robyn Munro is a World Mixed Championship silver medallist from 2022.
Canada, Scotland and Korea women have all secured their spot at this event by finishing on the podium at the World Junior-B Curling Championships in December 2022.
Schedule
Round-robin play starts on Saturday 25 February and continues until Thursday 2 March. The top four teams in the round-robin rankings qualify for the semi-finals in both genders.
All the semi-finals will take place on Friday 3 March. The women’s semi-finals will start at 14:00 and are followed by the men’s semi-final games at 19:00.
In both genders one semi-final will be played between the first-ranked and the fourth-ranked teams, while the other semi-final will be held between the second and third-ranked teams.
The winners of the semi-finals will play for gold medals and the world title, the losers will play for bronze.
The women’s medal games will take place on Saturday 4 March at 9:00. The men will play for the medals at 14.00 on the same day.
World Curling TV will be broadcasting all games exclusively on the Curling Channel. The broadcast schedule for the event is available here.
Click here for the playing schedule.
All times are CET (Central European Time) which is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) +1 hour.
Engage with the World Curling Federation in the lead up to the World Junior Curling Championships 2023 on TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Weibo and by searching the hashtags #WJCC2023 #curling
