Unbeaten Canada remain in control at Women's World Curling Championships and on course to make play-offs
BySportsbeat
Updated 22/03/2024 at 16:09 GMT
Unbeaten Canada remain in control at Women's World Curling Championships in Sydney, Nova Scotia, and are on course to make play-offs with 10 wins from 10. Homan’s Team Canada rolled to a 9-2 win over skip Jessica Smith’s Team New Zealand on Thursday to remain unbeaten and stay one step ahead of second-place Team Italy (9-1), skipped by Stefania Constantini.
Rachel Homan of Team Canada
Image credit: Eurosport
Canada continued their flawless run on home ice at the 2024 Women's World Curling Championships in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Led by Rachel Homan, they now have 10 wins from 10 after despatching Japan and Turkey on the fifth day of competition.
The hosts eased past Japan 7-2 thanks to a huge eighth end before producing five on the final end against Turkey to win 9-5.
The unbeaten Canada sit one win ahead of Stefania Constantini's Italy, who bounced back from narrow defeat to Canada on Tuesday with wins against South Korea, 10-9 and Denmark, 8-6, but lost 6-2 win to Switzerland's team on Friday morning.
Victory over Gim Eun-ji's South Korea helped Team Constantini move ahead of both them and Silvana Tirinzoniâ' Switzerland, who fell to a surprise 6-5 defeat to Scotland.
The Swiss had only lost one game prior to that contest but suffered another at the hands of Rebecca Morrison's side.
Canada will play South Korea’s Eunji Gim in a key match in the final draw on Friday evening after playing Scotland in the afternoon. Victories will secure a first-place finish place and a bye into the semi finals on the weekend, which comes to the teams that finish in the top two placings.
Scotland survived a nail-biting finish to beat Turkey 6-5 and beat Turkey, but cannot progress to play-off stage. Rebecca Morrison's rink finish the round-robin with games against Japan and Canada, in which they can get valuable points from the tournament, which count towards qualification for the Milan Winter Olympics in 2026.
The six playoff positions were settled on Thursday with Canada, Switzerland, Italy, South Korea, Sweden and Denmark the six teams advancing from the round robin.
Homan, who is supported by vice-skip Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, lead Sarah Wilkes, alternate Rachel Brown and coached by Don Bartlett and national coach Viktor Kjell, said it has been a grind this week.
"Every team we’ve played here this week has been phenomenal,” she said. I don’t know how they played against other teams but I know that every team we’ve played has been outstanding."
Homan is looking to win her second world title. She won her first in 2017 with Miskew, Joanne Courtney and Lisa Weagle. Jennifer Jones skipped the last Canadian team to win it in 2018 in North Bay, Ontario.
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