23 November 2023
Switzerland and Italy women to play for European gold
Switzerland will face Italy in the women’s gold medal final on Saturday at the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2023 in Aberdeen.
Switzerland beat Norway by 8-3 and Italy were 11-2 winners over Sweden in Thursday evening’s semi-finals.
Norway and Sweden will play for bronze medals on Friday.
Switzerland vs Norway
Switzerland controlled their game against Norway from the start. After blanking the first end, they scored twos in each of the second and fourth ends to give themselves a 4-2 lead at the fifth-end break.
Norway had a brief revival in the second half of the game. After a blanked sixth end they picked up a single steal in the seventh to reduce Switzerland’s lead to 4-3.
However, with a hit by Swiss fourth player Alina Paetz, Switzerland scored two in the eighth end to take their lead to 6-3.
Switzerland then had a steal of two in the ninth end for a final score of 9-3, as they move onto the gold medal game.
After her win, Swiss skip Silvana Tirinzoni said, “We know Norway and that they would play it close, but I felt we were playing really, really well.”
Looking forward to the final, she added, “We have to do everything to win, we saw that Italy played very well, so I hope we can produce the same performance as today.”
Italy vs Sweden
In the other semi-final, Italy were never really troubled against Sweden.
They opened with a score of four through a draw by skip Stefania Constantini in the first end. Then steals of one, then two, then one again, then two again in the next four ends saw them ahead by 10-0 at the break.
Sweden finally scored one in the sixth and then had a single steal in the seventh when Constantini threw away her last stone for fear of causing more damage in a busy house.
Constantini then drew onto button in the eighth for an 11-2 score, as Sweden conceded.
After this win, Constantini said, “We expected a tight game because they are a very good team, and then we had a really good game – our best game here. We played almost perfect, so I’m really proud of my team. Today we did something important, but it’s not finished yet.”
Italy have never won the European title, while, for all her world championship success, Switzerland’s Tirinzoni has never won a European title either.
B-Division
Competition in the B-Division takes place in Perth, where ten women’s and 16 men’s teams play for medals and promotion to next season’s A-Division.
Round-robin play finished for both genders on Thursday evening.
In the women’s competition, table-toppers Poland will play fourth-placed Lithuania in one semi-final, while second-placed Latvia will take on third-placed Hungary in the other semi-final.
In Group A of the men’s competition, Latvia, France and Belgium earned a spot in the play-offs, whereas in the men’s Group B, England, Austria and Spain secured a place in the play-offs.
Click here for all the results from the B-Division.
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