24 November 2023
Scotland and Sweden men go for gold in Aberdeen
Title-defenders Scotland met Switzerland, while previously undefeated Italy faced Sweden in the men’s semi-finals at the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2023 on Friday morning.
In a repeat of the Olympic final in Beijing and the European championship final in 2021, Scotland men will face Sweden for gold in Curl Aberdeen on Saturday afternoon.
Before that, Italy will play Switzerland for bronze medals, following two semi-finals that saw Scotland beat Switzerland by 7-4 and Sweden emerge as 7-6 winners over Italy.
Scotland vs Switzerland
In the third end of the game between Scotland and Switzerland, with the score tied at 1-1, Scotland’s skip Bruce Mouat played a hit-and-stay for two points and a 3-1 lead.
In the sixth end Switzerland’s fourth player Benoit Schwarz-van Berkel got his final draw inside four Scottish stones to score one and reduce the Scottish lead to 3-2.
In the eighth end, with his team still leading by 3-2, and after good build-up play, Mouat played a delicate tap-up of one of his own stones to score three and take a 6-2 lead.
Switzerland responded with a two in the ninth end, to reduce Scotland’s lead to 6-4.
In the tenth end, Mouat had a nose-hit for one point and the win to secure a spot in the gold medal game.
Afterwards, Mouat said, “We’re excited to play in another European final. We’ve stepped up our game and we’ve been consistent, so we’re in a good spot. I think that was close to being our best game this week. All four of us were really on the ball, and we worked hard to get that lead going into the tenth end.”
Italy vs Sweden
In the other semi-final, Italy and Sweden were tied at 2-2 after the first two ends.
In the third, Italy’s skip Joel Retornaz played a nose-hit to score two and take a 4-2 lead.
The teams were tied at 4-4 after six ends. In the seventh, a tap-out attempt by Retornaz would have scored four, but jammed and a three-way measure determined that the Italians had scored just one for a 5-4 lead.
In the eighth end, Sweden skip Niklas Edin played a double take-out to score two and take the lead for the first time in the game at 6-5.
In the ninth end, Italy’s Retornaz played a raise double take-out and, although he reached his second Swedish target stone, he did not move it enough, and had to settle for just one to tie the game at 6-6.
In the tenth end, Italy left just one stone in the house, which Edin tapped out, keeping his own in play to score the one point needed for a 7-6 win.
After this game, a relieved Edin said, “It feels amazing. We’ve had a big struggle this week, with some ups and downs. We’ve played pretty well, but not got the results we were looking for. We’ve had injuries and small things like that disturbing our play, but we’ve also had a lot of motivation. Joel was really on fire and we had to put a lot of pressure on. We had to hope for a mistake, and we got lucky.”
Looking forward he added, “It’s going to be a super final. Making the final feels great but we’re going to come in super motivated.”
The men’s bronze medal game takes place on Friday evening, while the gold final will be staged on Saturday afternoon.
Engage with the World Curling Federation during the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2023 on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook and by searching the hashtags #curling and #ECC
