In Sunday evening’s fifth round-robin session of the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship, table-toppers Canada beat Switzerland by 10-6, while the other session winners were Germany, who beat United States by 8-3; Italy, 10-7 winners over Finland; and Norway, who beat Scotland by 7-4.
These results mean that Canada now have a four wins and no losses record at the top of the table, while five teams share second place — on two wins and one loss — Finland, Germany, Italy, Norway, and United States.
United States versus Germany
Hosts United States faced Germany in this session and, in the third end, with United States leading by 1-0, Germany’s skip Sixten Totzek played a tap-out and kept his own stone in position to score three points and take a 3-1 lead.
By the sixth end, Germany led by 4-2 and when American skip Korey Dropkin came up short with his final draw, the Germans added a steal of two more points to increase their lead to 6-2, on the way to an 8-3 win.
After the game, Germany’s Totzek said, “We felt good about that game. The last game wasn’t really us, so we had a re-set and we had a pretty good start this time with a three. This time we had the weight and the control. Now every game matters for us. We know we can win against everyone, and we can lose against everyone, so we’ll keep going.”
Switzerland versus Canada
In the game between Canada and Switzerland, the Swiss held a 4-0 lead as they played the fourth end. In that end, Canada’s skip Brad Gushue scored four points with a nose-hit to level the score at 4-4.
In the sixth end, Switzerland had a 5-4 lead when Gushue played a hit for two points, to take the lead for the first time in the game, at 6-5.
After this, with the score level at 6-6, Canada had a tap-out in the eighth end and, after an umpire’s measure, scored two more points to re-take the lead at 8-6. A steal of two in the ninth end for a 10-6 score-line completed the Canadian comeback victory.
Later Canada’s skip Brad Gushue was asked about his team’s poor start, “We just tried to make shots. When you’re down 4-0 you just try to get the last rock and maybe you might get a mistake. We got a mistake early in the fourth end when he jammed, and that gave us a shot for four.”
Italy versus Finland
Italy played Finland and held a lead of 3-2 going into the fourth end.
In that fourth end, Finland’s skip Kalle Kiiskinen had an open draw to score four points to take a 6-3 lead. However, Italy responded straightaway in the next end when their skip Joel Retornaz scored three points with a nose-hit to level the score at 6-6 at the fifth-end break.
Italy went on to control the second half of the game, scoring in all but one end, to win by 10-7.
Norway versus Scotland
Norway were up against Scotland and in the fourth end of this game, with the Scots holding a 2-1 lead, their fourth player Ross Paterson failed to move two Norway stones on the button with his last stone, to give up a steal of two and hand Norway a 3-2 lead.
After the teams went into the fifth end break level at 3-3, Norway scored one in the sixth, stole another in the seventh and then scored two in the ninth end to complete their 7-4 win.
Norway skip Magnus Ramsfjell was pleased afterwards, saying, “That was a very good game, we played very well, and I’m glad we came out on top. We’re making all the shots that are important. We can still pick it up, but not by much. That was a really good game, especially the last five ends, so if we can play like that we’re going to win more games, that’s for sure.”
Session five results: Germany 8-3 United States; Italy 10-7 Finland; Norway 7-4 Scotland; Switzerland 6-10 Canada.
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