Germany beat Turkey by 10-7 in Monday evening’s fifth session of women’s round-robin play at the Olympic Qualification Event to record their first win so far.
Meanwhile, Korea’s 7-1 victory over Italy puts them in joint top place on the rankings on four wins and one loss, along with Latvia, who beat Czech Republic by 9-6.
In the third end of their game against Turkey, with the score tied at 1-1, Germany’s skip Daniela Jentsch hit out a Turkey stone to score three points and take a 4-1 lead.
Later, in the eighth end, with Turkey leading by 6-5, Germany’s Jentsch drew her last stone into position to score two and take the lead, at 7-6.
Germany went on to win by 10-7 with a hit for three points in the tenth end, to record their first win of the event so far.
Afterwards, Jentsch said, “That was very important, especially when you start off with zero and three. But it’s a huge battle out there. The conditions aren’t anything where what we’re used to and that’s the biggest struggle right now. That’s just given us the confidence that we still know how to throw rocks. We’ve had close games but just didn’t come out on the right side, but a win is good.”
Korea opened their game against Italy with a score of two in the first end and followed that up with another two points in the third end when skip Kim Eun-Jung played a draw into the house.
This gave them a 4-1 lead and they stayed in control from that point, to win by 7-1 in seven ends.
Later, their coach Peter Gallant said, “The girls seem to have figured out the ice a little better and we’re starting to understand what weight to throw in certain situations. We got off to a good start there and pretty well had it under control. So far, so good. We’ve put ourselves in a good position and that’s all we want.”
Also in this session, new European champions Scotland faced Olympic bronze medallists Japan.
The Scots led by 3-0 after three ends. In the fourth end, Japan’s skip Fujisawa Satsuki played a hit right across the house to score two points and reduce Scotland’s lead to 3-2.
Later, in the seventh end, and already ahead by 5-3, Scotland’s skip Eve Muirhead played a nose-hit on a Japan stone to score three points and extend her team’s lead to 8-3.
Scotland went on to win by 8-5 for what was their second victory so far.
After the game, Scotland’s Muirhead said, “That shows what we’re capable of doing. We just haven’t managed to string a lot of shots together and we’ve struggled with the conditions. Tonight it just came together. We were clinical with stone placement and overall, we just outplayed them and that’s good momentum for us going forward.”
She added, “There was a lot of relief there but satisfaction too, because that shows how well we can play. That puts us in good stead for playing Germany tomorrow.”
The fourth game of the session saw Latvia play Czech Republic. Latvia were already 4-2 ahead when, in the fifth end, Czech Republic skip Anna Kubeskova put her last stone completely through the house to give Latvia their third successive single-point steal and a 5-2 lead at the break.
Helped by a further score of three in the eighth end, Latvia went on to win by 9-6 to share the lead with Korea.
Latvia skip Santa Blumberga-Berzina said, “Another win, again it feels great. We’re just trying to go game by game now. As soon as you start looking at the end… We don’t want that. We just want to go game by game and focus on what we have to do right now.”
Women Session Five results: Scotland 8-5 Japan; Germany 10-7 Turkey; Italy 1-7 Korea; Latvia 9-6 Czech Republic
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