Pilsen, Czech Republic
Friday 8 December 2018
With wins over Denmark and the hosts, Czech Republic in Friday (8 December) afternoon’s second-last session of women’s round-robin play at the Olympic Qualification Event 2017 in Pilsen, China and Italy became the first two teams to qualify for the top three ranking places.
This means, they will each play in at least one game that gives them the chance to battle for the last two remaining places in the women’s ten-team line-up at next February’s PyeognChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
In this session, China and Denmark, who along with Italy were joint table-toppers, faced each other. In the eighth end, China’s skip Bingyu Wang played a raise split shot to score four points from the end and win the game at 9-3 when Denmark conceded. This win guaranteed a top three finish for China.
Meanwhile, the other joint leaders Italy faced the Czech hosts and, in the seventh end, the Czech skip Anna Kubeskova played a draw-shot for two points to give her team a 5-4 lead. Then, in the tenth end, Italy’s skip Diana Gaspari played a double angle raise take-out to score three points and take a 9-7 win and qualify for the play-offs.
In the third game of the session, Germany beat Finland by 6-4.
The next live game, on national broadcasters and World Curling TV (note geo-blocking applies), at this event will be China v Finland men at 19:00, Central European Time (+1 hours, Greenwich Mean Time) on Friday (8 December) evening.
They said it
Bingyu Wang; skip, China (after 9-3 win over Denmark): “Even though we lost last night we played the game our way and not that badly. We just think in the round-robin anything can happen. Our goal is to qualify for the play-offs – for the top three, so we just focussed on the next game and today we did that and won.”
Diana Gaspari; skip, Italy (after 9-7 win over the Czech Republic): “I’m still shaking after that last shot. Luckily, I had two options so I was more relaxed. It’s great to qualify. We’ve had two great weeks we didn’t expect to be such a tough team to play. I’m really surprised at how our team has reacted to this type of event.
Women’s session six results: Denmark 3-9 China; Italy 9-7 Czech Republic; Finland 4-6 Germany
Standings after women’s session six (W-L):
P China 4-1
P Italy 4-1
Denmark 3-2
Czech Republic 3-3
Germany 2-3
Latvia 2-3
Finland 0-5
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