Italy win World Men’s bronze medals

Although they had lost to Sweden in Saturday’s semi-finals, Italy had the consolation of picking up bronze medals in the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2024, with a 7-6 extra end win over Scotland. The Scots had lost their semi-final and their status as world champions to Canada in Saturday’s semi-final.

In the first end, Scotland skip Bruce Mouat was facing five Italian counters when he opened the scoring with a draw for one point.

Italy then responded in the second when their skip Joel Retornaz also played a draw for one, to level the score at 1-1.

In the third end, Scotland’s Mouat once again played a draw and once again scored one, 2-1.

Team Scotland © World Curling / Céline Stucki

In the fourth end, Italy’s Retornaz played a nose-hit on a Scottish stone to score another single, 2-2.

The first break-through came in the fifth end when Mouat made a hit for two and a 4-2 lead at the break.

In the seventh end, with the Scots still leading by 4-2, Retornaz failed on a run-back attempt and had to settle for just one point from another of his stones lying in scoring position. This reduced the Scottish lead to 4-3.

In the ninth end, with his team still leading by 4-3, Mouat played a hit to score two and move the Scots’ lead onto 6-3.

Then in the tenth, after Mouat had got his angles wrong on a raise double take-out attempt, Retornaz was able to hit and score three points, to tie the game at 6-6, and force an extra end.

Italy versus Scotland for bronze © World Curling / Céline Stucki

In that extra end, Mouat was left with a difficult in-off, but could not remove the Italian counter, giving Italy a steal of one, and a 7-6 win.

After the game, a delighted Joel Retornaz said, “I feel amazing. It’s like winning the gold medal for me right now, the way we won this game and the way the whole team fought for the whole game. We knew we had a small chance in the tenth and then we were pumped up for the extra end.”

Speaking about the packed crowds that were present all week, he said, “Our fans have been amazing – not only our fans, but the fans from all the other countries.”

And he added, “The field here is super strong and we’re super proud to have finished in the top three.”

Fans celebrate Italy’s victory © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

The bronze medal winning Italian team are skip Joel Retornaz, third Amos Mosaner, second Sebastiano Arman and lead Mattia Giovanella, supported by alternate Francesco De Zanna and coach Ryan Fry.

The gold medal final will take place later on Sunday (7 April) at 15:00 (CEST) and will see Sweden take on Canada.

Click here for all the results from the championship.

For information about streaming, click here.

Engage with World Curling during the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2024 on TikTok, Twitter/X, Instagram, Facebook, and Weibo and by searching the hashtags #WMCC and #curling