Final preparations underway for world mixed curling championship

On the threshold of the World Mixed Curling Championship in Kazan, Secretary General of the Russain Curling Federation, Olga Zharkova, and chief icemaker appointed by the World Curling Federation (WCF), Stefan Roethlisberger, met with journalists at the Sport Palace. They shared their expectations of the upcoming tournament due to open tomorrow, October 14, and evaluated the competition venue’s readiness for the event.

37 teams (171 participants, including 148 athletes and 23 team officials) will arrive in the host city for the tournament. In the days to come, Kazan will welcome athletes from Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Republic of Korea, Russia, Romania, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, USA, Turkey, and Wales.

“I think that players’ experience will help them to get accommodated to the rink and to show their best performance. I would like to specifically note that all teams are on equal terms here. Tomorrow they will have training sessions. I hope that there will be many spectators and the ice will be perfect, just like at all international curling events. The Russian team has been preparing hard and we hope that good success will attend them,” Olga Zharkova said. When asked which teams are the tournament’s favourites, she named the teams of Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Canada. “The first sessions will reveal the teams’ true potential. Mixed is an event in which both male and female players compete; strong players will need some time to achieve good teamwork,” Olga said.

“We’ve fully prepared the field of play; we’ve drawn markings and have evened the curling lanes. Ice preparation for curling events differs from ice preparation for ice hockey or figure skating competitions. We need to freeze the rink in such a way that there are no air bubbles in the ice. It’s very important, otherwise the ice will crack under the stone’s weight. The water we use for the rink passes through the filters several times. It takes roughly five days to prepare the curling ice,” Stefan Roethlisberger said. He gave thumbs-up to the work done by the event organisers.

It’s the second time that Russia plays host to the World Curling Championship outside Sochi, the host city for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Earlier, the World Curling Federation organised the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship (2015), World Senior Curling Championship (2015) World Wheelchair Curling Championship (2013) and World Junior Curling Championships (2013) in Sochi, as well as the World Mixed Doubles Championship (2010) in Chelyabinsk. In 2011, Moscow also provided the stage for the European Curling Championship.

The Kazan curling tournament will be the second edition of the World Mixed Curling Championship, the first of which was held in Berne (SUI) in 2015. The Norwegian team, composed of Steffen Walstad, Julie Molnar, Sander Roelvaag, Pia Trulsen, made it into the history by winning the first world mixed champion title. In the final match, they managed to beat the Swedish team. Russia placed fourth, losing the third place match to China.

Tickets for the competitions can be purchased either online at the official ticket agency’s website www.zamnoi.ru or in ticket offices around the city. Preliminary round tickets will be valid for two games (one game lasts more than two hours). Ticket prices vary from 50 to 300 rubles.