MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/. Russian curlers have beaten the Scottish team 9-8 in the 12th round-robin match of the 2021 World Women's Curling Championship held in Canada’s Calgary.
The Russians snapped their two-match losing streak and are now ranked second in the overall standings table with nine victories. The Russian team will next play their match against the US.
The 2021 World Women's Curling Championship has 14 countries competing, including Russia, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, the US, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, China, Japan, South Korea. The teams first compete in the round-robin stage. The top two nations will automatically progress to the semifinals, while the four next teams will battle it out in the qualification matches for the two semifinal spots left. The championship will run through May 9.
The tournament serves as a qualification event for the Beijing Olympics, teams need to rank in the top six after the round-robin stage. The world championship was initially supposed to take place on March 14-22, 2020 in Canada’s Prince George but was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Russian team is competing as the Russian Curling Federation (RCF) because of the sanctions imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the Russian anthem won’t be played if the country wins the event. The Russian female curling team is a four-time European championship winner, they last won the gold medal in 2016. Russia’s best world championship result is the final in Beijing in 2017. The country also won four bronze medals at the championship (2014, 2015, 2016, 2018).