22 March 2026
Switzerland to play Canada for BKT World Women’s 2026 title
Switzerland will play Canada on Sunday (22 March) afternoon in the Gold Medal final of the BKT World Women’s Curling Championship 2026, following their semi-final victories on Saturday afternoon.
After a whirlwind start that saw them lead by 7-1 after just four ends, Canada beat Japan by 11-3 in their semi-final, while Switzerland beat Sweden by 8-5 in the other semi-final.
Canada v Japan
Canada had beaten Japan in their last round-robin game on Friday to finish second on the table and take the direct route to the semi-finals. Japan had to then come back to play their Saturday morning qualification game against Turkiye, which they won by 7-5.
In the semi-final, Canada opened with a score of three points, thanks to a triple raise take-out by their skip Kerri Einarson, and never looked back. Japan responded with a single point in the second end, but then in the third, Canada’s Einarson played a take-out, to score another two points for a 5-1 lead. In the fourth end, Japan’s skip Fujisawa Satsuki attempted a raise take-out off the wing but misjudged the angles and gave up a steal of two, to improve the Canadian lead to 7-1.
Japan then scored one in the fifth end and stole one more point in the sixth, but, in the seventh, Einarson was able to draw her last stone for three more points and a 10-3 lead.
Japan then tried to concede, but the teams were reminded that they had to play a minimum of eight ends at this stage in the competition. The players then had some hitting practice in the eighth. Eventually Fujisawa played a crowd-pleasing ‘spin-o-rama’ shot to conclude the game, with Canada’s final score at 11-3.
This will be a first world final for Einarson’s team, and after the game she said, “I just got goosebumps out there. We’ve worked so hard for this and we’ve been through so much as a team, to finally accomplish this and get to the world final is a dream come true.”
Speaking about the game itself she said, “Even though we were up, we were still trying to get a feel for the ice, I think we did a really good job of that and made some clutch shots when we needed them.”
Looking forward to the final she added, “I think we just have to go out, enjoy the moment and have fun with it, and capitalise on any opportunities we get. Make the hard ones and see what happens.”
Sweden v Switzerland
Switzerland had topped the round-robin table to go directly to the semi-finals, and in the process, giving themselves the advantage of last stone. To join them, Sweden had beaten Korea by 9-5 in their morning qualification game.
This was a tighter semi-final, with the teams tied at 3-3 as they went into the fifth-end break.
In the sixth end, good early play by her team left Swiss skip Xenia Schwaller with an open take-out on the wing to score three points and take a 6-3 lead. Sweden skip Isabella Wranaa could only respond with one point in the seventh, with a take-out off the button for 4-6. However, in the eighth, another take-out on the wing gave Schwaller a score of two more points, to improve the Swiss lead once again, to 8-4.
Switzerland then ran Sweden out of stones in the tenth end, to win by 8-5.
After the game, skip Schwaller said, “It makes me quite emotional — my team played so good and I’m so proud of them.”
“Once again, patience won that, and that has been the story all week long.”
Looking forward to the final, she said, “Obviously, gold would be great, but I want to enjoy that win for now and re-focus tomorrow morning. But we’re right where we want to be first. We‘re playing great, we’re very confident and we need to continue doing exactly what we’re doing.”
The championship will now conclude on Sunday with Japan playing Sweden for bronze medals at 09.00, followed by Canada against Switzerland for gold and the BKT World Women’s title at 15.00.
The World Women’s medal games will be broadcast on the Curling Channel, however, there may be restrictions due to broadcast partner agreements.
Follow live scores and results here.
All times are Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) which is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) -6.
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