Canada retain junior men’s world title in Krasnoyarsk
The men’s gold and bronze medal games of the World Junior Curling Championships 2020 were won by Canada and Scotland, on Saturday (22 February) morning in Krasnoyarsk’s Crystal Ice Arena.
Canada — skip Jacques Gauthier, third Jordan Peters, second Brayden Payette, lead Zachary Bilawka, supported by alternate Thomas Dunlop, and coach John Lund — claimed the gold medal with a 7-2 win. The silver medals went to Switzerland — skip Marco Hoesli, fourth Yves Stocker, second Felix Eberhard, lead Marcel Gertsch, supported by alternate Yves Wagenseil, and coach Rodger Schmidt.
Canada opened the scoring in the second end with a single point and then doubled their lead to 2-0 in the fourth end with a single-point steal. Switzerland got on to the scoreboard in the fifth end with one point, and then in the sixth end, Canada’s skip Jacques Gauthier played a nose-hit for two points and a 4-1 lead.
In the seventh end, Switzerland’s fourth player Yves Stocker was facing four Canadian counters when he played his final draw. His attempt was a touch heavy and Switzerland gave up a steal of two points to extend Canada’s lead to 6-1.
In the eighth end, Switzerland’s Stocker tried to draw his final stone into position to score one point, but he came up just short to give Canada a single-point steal and a 7-1 lead.
With a final point in the ninth end, Switzerland shook hands and Canada became world champions for the third time in succession.
Canadian skip, Jacques Gauthier spoke after the game, “It’s unreal. It was our first final and the boys played really well. To the fans back home and the girls’ fans cheering us on, thank you so much for sticking with us and following along the whole week, making us feel like we weren’t in the middle of Siberia by ourselves.”
The bronze medals went to Scotland — skip James Craik, third Mark Watt, second Blair Haswell, lead Angus Bryce, supported by alternate Niall Ryder, and coach Iain Watt — with a tight 6-5 score.
Scotland opened the scoring with two points in the second end. Then a draw in the fourth end by German skip Sixten Totzek, scored two points to tie the game at 2-2.
After scoring three points in the seventh end and stealing a single point in the eighth end for a 6-3 lead, Scotland went on to make a heavy-weight takeout to seal their 6-5 victory in the tenth end.
Scottish skip James Craik said, “It’s amazing to win bronze. It might not be the colour we all were dreaming of, but to walk away with a medal is unbelievable. My team has dug in and stuck with me, and I couldn’t ask for a better unit to be around me, especially with all that’s gone on this week.”
Korea and Canada junior women will face each other for the gold medals this afternoon at 14:00 Krasnoyarsk Time (UTC +7), while Japan and Russia will battle for the bronze medals at the same time.
World Curling TV will broadcast the women’s gold medal game on the World Curling YouTube channel worldwide, and on Match TV in Russia.
Men’s gold medal result: Canada 7-2 Switzerland.
Men’s bronze medal result: Scotland 6-5 Germany.
Follow all the action from the World Junior Curling Championships 2020 by following the World Curling Federation on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo. Search: #WJCC2020 #curling
