The World Wheelchair-B Curling Championship 2022 will take place in the Kisakallio Sports Institute in Lohja, Finland from 5–10 November.
12 teams will play for spots in the World Wheelchair Curling Championship 2023 line-up. The three medal winning teams in Lohja qualify for the world championship, being held in March 2023 in Richmond, Canada.
The Kisakallio Sports Institute has hosted the four-player world wheelchair curling championship five times previously —in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2021. Most recently, the inaugural World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship was held there in May 2022.
Participating teams
The participating teams are divided into two groups of six.
Group A: England, Finland, Italy, Japan, Poland and Switzerland
Group B: Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary and Kazakhstan
The Estonian team participated in the Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing in March 2022 where they finished tenth.
Germany skip Christiane Putzich is one of the most experienced players in the field. She took part in two Paralympic Games —in 2010 and 2018— and five world wheelchair curling championships. Germany lead Heike Melchior is also a Paralympian, she took part in the Games in 2018 in Korea.
Switzerland skip Laurent Kneubuehl led the Swiss team at the Paralympics in Beijing as well, while vice-skip Marcel Bodenmann and lead Beatrix Blauel have Paralympic experience from 2018.
Hungary’s Sárai Rita and Beke Viktor have great memories from the Kisakallio Sports Institute, as they won silver medals at the inaugural World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship earlier this year.
This will be the first appearance on world wheelchair curling ice for a team representing Kazakhstan.
Playing format and schedule
Each group plays a round robin. Round-robin play starts on Saturday 5 November and continues until Tuesday 8 November.
At the end of the round robin a ranking will be established for places one, two and three in each group. The teams ranked first in each group will advance directly to the semi-finals.
The second-ranked team of each group will play the third-ranked team of the other group in qualification games to determine the last teams in the semi-finals.
The qualification games will take place on Wednesday 9 November at 10.00. The semi-finals will be held on the same day at 16.30.
The winners of the semi-finals will meet in the gold medal game on Thursday 10 November at 15.00. The losers of the semi-finals play for the bronze medals earlier that day, at 10.00.
All times are EET (Eastern European Time) which is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) +2 hours.
Engage with the World Curling Federation in the lead up to the World Wheelchair-B Curling Championship 2022 on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Weibo and by searching the hashtags #WWhBCC2022 #curling
