3 April 2026
Konrad Stych reflects on Poland’s debut experience at the LGT World Men’s
Poland made their world championship debut at this event, and with two wins overall, as well as a number of combative performances, they certainly made their mark.
Asked to reflect on his team’s experience, skip Konrad Stych says, “We are playing good percentage games against the best teams in the world”. He adds, “but we’re still not at the place where we want to be. It feels really good to play against these teams, but I can still see the gap between us. At least we now know what to practise and how to practice.”
Konrad also gives some more background to his team’s journey, “This team started five or six years ago, and we started before we were able to compete in the European C-Division [due to the then expulsion of the Polish governing body]. Eventually, we got into the European B-Division and the second time around was when we made it into the A-Division.”
He added, “It was always our goal to get to the Worlds, but also to compete at a certain level, and I think we’ve achieved that here.”
Konrad was also pleased at the way his opponents have welcomed his team, saying, “The teams are really kind to each other here — just pure sportsmanship and pure sports battles, so it’s all good.”
As Poland head back home, is there a number one lesson they have learned?
“We still have to learn with our releases. Because conditions change, our stones are constantly over-curling by a mile. So, we are having a hard time trying to adapt to changing conditions. That was always our weak side — we were not able to adjust at all, now we are better at it, but I feel we are not yet at the right level.”
Like many of the smaller nations, this Polish team is challenged just to raise the funds to be at the championship. About that, Konrad says, “This is the first time that the Polish government decided to give Polish curling some funding, but the funding is still not enough, so we have to fight for sponsorships.”
At the end of the day, how does his team feel about their overall campaign?
“We’ve enjoyed it. Staying in the A-Division was our number one goal here and we’ve achieved that. We’re really glad we can achieve a goal like that. Even though it’s not a huge goal, it means a lot to us. This season, we’ve pretty much achieved all our goals, so that feels great.”
Join the World Curling community!
Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, LinkedIn and Weibo and by searching the hashtags #curling and #WMCC
Sign up for the World Curling Newsletter and receive monthly updates directly to your inbox.
