Play-off stage set as LGT World Men’s round robin draws to a close

With the twenty-game round-robin programme of the LGT World Men’s Curling Championship 2026 complete, the final Play-off picture has now emerged.

With ten wins and two losses, Sweden topped the round-robin ranking, to go direct to Friday afternoon’s semi-finals.

Scotland took the other direct semi-final slot, on an identical won ten, lost two record, but their draw shot challenge record saw them end up in second place overall.

In their last round-robin game, Sweden faced Czechia and, in the fifth end, they held a 4–1 lead. In this end, they piled stone after stone into the house and eventually missed out on a rare maximum score of eight when their skip Niklas Edin could not keep his last stone inside the rings, and instead had to settle for a score of seven from the end and an 11–1 lead. They then went on to win by 11–2 to go clear at the top of the table.

Scotland had two games on Thursday, beating Switzerland 7–4 before overcoming Czechia 8–2.

Team Canada © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

With the two direct semi-final slots decided, attention turned to the four teams that will play in Friday morning’s qualification games. Canada beat Germany 9–2 in their afternoon game before coming back onto the ice to play Norway. This game went to an extra end before the Canadians won 7–5, with a raise take-out by Canadian skip Matt Dunstone, to finish third overall, on the same record as Sweden and Scotland, but with the poorest draw shot challenge result of the three

Italy’s Alberto Pimpini © World Curling / Sarah Boeke

Meanwhile, in their only game on Thursday, Italy defeated Norway 7–4, and this result meant that they finished sixth overall — behind United States because they had lost in the head-to-head between these two teams — and will now face third-place Canada in the qualification round.

Team Switzerland © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

In the twentieth session, Switzerland beat United States 9–5, thanks largely to a score of four in the ninth end, when their fourth player Philipp Hoesli played a hit and stay on an American stone.

This result gave the Swiss fourth place overall, and they now have a re-match against fifth-placed United States in Friday morning’s qualification games, with the winners taking on Sweden.

Below the top six play-off qualifiers, China finished seventh, on six wins, while Japan finished eighth on five wins.

Germany had four wins overall to finish ninth, while Korea — who played much of the event with just three players — were tenth, ahead of Czechia. both teams recorded three wins, but Korea beat Czechia on the head-to-head result, thanks to a 7–6 extra end win earlier in the event.

Thanks to their two wins, Poland finished twelfth and qualified for next year’s championship, while Norway were win-less, on twelve losses, and are now relegated to the qualifier event in November.