9 October 2023
World Mixed Curling Championship to begin in Aberdeen
Aberdeen, Scotland will host the first competition of the 2023–2024 World Curling season, the World Mixed Curling Championship.
34 teams will play for the world mixed curling champions title from 14–21 October in Curl Aberdeen, a modern, purpose-built six-sheet facility situated to the west of Aberdeen.
This will be the seventh edition of the championship, the last being held in 2022 at the same venue. A year ago, Canada was crowned world champions after defeating hosts Scotland in the final. Switzerland earned the bronze medals.
Participating teams
The participating teams are divided into four groups.
Group A: Belgium, England, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Scotland, Sweden and Wales
Group B: Australia, Canada, Chinese Taipei, Finland, Hungary, Lithuania, New Zealand, Poland and Slovenia
Group C: Austria, Brazil, Estonia, Germany, India, Italy, Spain and United States
Group D: Czechia, Hongkong, Latvia, Nigeria, Norway, Slovakia, Switzerland and Ukraine.
Norway’s fourth and vice-skip, Steffen Walstad is a world mixed champion and World University Games gold medallist, both from 2015. Skip and third thrower Maia Ramsfjell was the alternate player of the world silver medal winning Norwegian women’s team earlier this year, while lead Eirin Mesloe is a world mixed bronze medallist from 2019.
The Spanish team is skipped by Sergio Vez for the sixth time on this level. This same team won a world mixed silver medal in 2018. Vez also earned a world mixed doubles bronze medal in 2014.
Switzerland has one change in their line-up compared to last year’s world mixed bronze medal winning team. Ursi Hegner will once again skip the team, while Yves Hess will throw fourth stones, and Simon Hoehn will play second.
Sweden’s female players, Jennie Waahlin and Fanny Sjoeberg are world junior champions from 2017, while Waahlin is also Olympic champion as the alternate player of the Swedish women’s team in 2018.
The Italian team is skipped by Alberto Pimpini, who was the alternate player of Joel Retornaz’s European bronze medal winning men’s squad last year.
Scotland’s third player, Amy Mitchell won world junior gold medal as alternate for the Scottish women’s team in February.
Playing format and schedule
Each group plays a round-robin. Round robin play starts on Saturday 14 October and continues until Thursday 19 October.
At the end of the round robin, all teams qualified for the play-offs are ranked one to 12 in a merged group ranking system. The four group winners advance directly to the quarter-final games.
Teams placed second and third in each group will play qualification games on Friday 20 October at 10.00 to determine the last four teams in the play-offs.
The quarter-finals will take place on Friday at 18.00.
The winners of the quarter-finals will play in the semi-finals on Saturday at 9.30. The medal games will take place on Saturday afternoon at 14.30.
All times are BST (British Summer Time) which is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) +1 hour.
Streaming will take place on Recast following their return from administration. The streaming schedule can be found here.
Engage with the World Curling Federation in the lead up to the World Mixed Curling Championship 2023 on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Weibo and by searching the hashtags #WorldMixed and #curling
