Day two of the Youth Olympic Games started on Saturday morning (11 January) at the Champery Curling Arena with session four games. This session saw Spain, Slovenia and Turkey collecting their first victories of the tournament while New Zealand earned their second win.
Group A
The only game of Group A saw Spain taking on Estonia, both teams seeking their first win at the Games. Estonia capitalised on their hammer in the first end, scoring three points. Spain then scored a single point, and went on stealing in the following five ends, which led to Spain running Estonia out of stones and making the final score 9-3.
Spain skip, Aleix Raubert Rusinol, said, “It is very important to get the first win. For us it is the first win playing internationally with Spain. We are very happy and proud to win this game. We have been training since September – we play competitions in Spain and Switzerland. The team dynamic is quite good and we know how to manage the different situations.”
About their steals, he added, “We had a lot of chances to steal because the strategy went well so we keep it the same.”
Group C
Group C play continued in this session with three games. New Zealand took on France. In the first two ends the teams traded single points with the last stone advantage, while France stole another single in the third end. New Zealand put two more points on the board in the fourth end, which gave them a 3-2 lead at half time. In the fifth end, New Zealand stole a single point, which France responded to by a score of two. It meant that after six ends, the teams were tied at four and this carried until the eighth end. New Zealand scored two points in the eighth end to win 6-4.
Slovenia was looking for their first win, playing Norway. Even so, Norway built up a 3-0 lead in the first three ends, but Slovenia battled back. By Slovenia scoring two points with hammer both in the fourth and six ends, and forcing Norway to a single in the fifth end, they were tied at four with two more ends to go. As they exchanged single points with hammer, the game went into an extra end. In that end, Slovenia drew their last stone to the button and won the game, 6-5.
In the third game of this group, Turkey and Great Britain faced each other. Turkey lead the game 2-1 going into the fourth end break. Great Britain did not manage to put any more points on the scoreboard in the second half of the game, while Turkey stole points in the fifth and seventh ends. The final score of the game was 5-1 after Turkey ran Great Britain out of stones in the eighth end.
Turkey lead, Berfin Sengul, said after the game, “We are now very happy. We hope tomorrow is the same again. Today we had focus and we felt very good as a team. Yesterday was our first match and we were not ready but today we did a good job.”
Session four results:
New Zealand 6-4 France; Slovenia 6-5 Norway; Turkey 5-1 Great Britain; Spain 9-3 Estonia
Standings
Group A
Canada 1-0
Republic of Korea 1-0
Poland 1-0
Spain 1-1
Russian Federation 0-1
Estonia 0-2
Group C
New Zealand 2-0
Great Britain 1-1
Norway 1-1
Slovenia 1-1
Turkey 1-1
France 0-2
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