Poland record historic first-ever World Men’s Championship win

With two emphatic scores of four points — in the sixth and eighth ends — Poland recorded a historic first-ever world championship victory, beating Germany by 11–4 in just eighth ends, in Saturday evening’s fifth round-robin session of the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2026.

This was the Polish highlight so far as they compete on the world stage for the first time.

Poland’s Konrad Stych © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Konrad Stych and his men started with real intent, building the house in the first end and stealing the opening two points when they forced German skip Marc Muskatewitz into a mistake with his final attempted tap-back.

With the score at 3–2 in their favour, Stych played a raise take-out for his first score of four in the sixth end — improving their lead to 7–2. Then, in the eighth, a double take-out by Stych for another score of four and 11–4 was enough to seal their historic victory.

This win came after the Poles had run three-man Korea close in their afternoon game before Korea won by 7–4 and afterwards, an elated Stych said, “I feel we just adapted to the ice. This is our first time at the worlds, so the ice is nowhere near what we are used to playing. We just adapted and had many good shots in this game, so I’m grateful to the team.”

And reflecting on his team’s historic achievement, he added, “it’s great — we need to have a few more wins to achieve our goal, but it feels great.”

The Poles now sit in joint eleventh place, on one win and two losses, alongside Italy.

Team Sweden © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Elsewhere, two wins on Saturday — by 9–4 over Italy and then by 9–2 over China in just six ends — kept Sweden’s perfect record going. They now sit at the top of the rankings alongside Switzerland, on three wins and no losses.

To join the Swedes, Switzerland had two wins on Saturday — beating Norway emphatically by 8–1 before beating Japan by 8–3 in the evening session.

Team Switzerland © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

The evening game with Japan was tied at 3–3 in the sixth end when Switzerland’s fourth player Philipp Hoesli drew his final stone onto the button, to score one point and move on to a 4–3 lead, before going on to secure their 8–3 win.

Speaking after their earlier win over Norway, Switzerland skip Marco Hoesli said, “I think we were just a tiny bit more precise than them. We were quite happy with the first couple of ends, then we kept being more precise and putting the pressure on. I think we’re improving — from end to end and from shot to shot. We’re getting a better feel for the ice and what we have to do to make the shots.”

Scotland’s Robin Brydone and Craig Waddell © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Scotland recovered from two opening day losses with two strong wins on Saturday.

They beat Canada 8–3 in just seven ends, then came back onto the ice to beat United States 6–4.

In the fifth end of their game against Canada, the Scots led by 4–2, when skip Ross Whyte promoted one of his own stones to clear two Canadian stones from the house and score three points for a 7–2 lead, on the way to their 8–3 seven-end win.

Scotland’s Ross Whyte © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Later Whyte said, “That [win] was really important. We actually felt that we played quite well yesterday and could easily have come out on the right side of both games. We know if we can get ahead early, that’s our best chance against great teams like Canada.”

Team Czechia © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Other teams to record their first wins included Czechia, who, after losing 8–7 to Germany, beat Norway by 6–5.

As the teams played the tenth end, Norway’s skip Andreas Haarstad had a chance to win, but his hit was just off angle and his own stone rolled too far, to give Czechia a steal of one point and their first victory so far.

Speaking later, Czechia skip Lukas Klima said, “A first win… finally! It’s kind of strange because in the first two games we played pretty well and in both of those games, we had just one bad end. Today we had a really solid last three end and were able to steal the win, but there’s plenty of room for improvement. We’ve had three close games, so I think we can win a few more.”