England’s women’s team of Joan Reed, Lorna Rettig , Claire Grimwood and Kirsty Balfour repeated their feat of last year in gaining a bronze medal in Division B of the European Curling Championship. A tense Page play off game was lost when the Finnish skip threaded a narrow port with her last stone to take out the English counter, while in the subsequent semi-final against Austria a brave fight back was thwarted at the last end when the Austrian skip’s hit and roll was good enough to prevent Joan from successfully removing it.

Austria went on to beat Finland in the final and both countries gained places in the A Division next year. Austria, however, failed to qualify for the World Championships when they were defeated by the Czech Republic by two games to nil.

The surprise of the A division was the relegation of Norway for the first time ever when former World Champion Dordi Nordby and her new young team only won 2 games out of 9. The team from the Netherlands was also relegated. In another surprise Russia defeated Italy in the A final, Scotland finished 4th.

The men’s team of Michael Opel, Jamie Malton, Andrew Woolston and Ken Malton finally finished 5th equal in Division B which was won by the Czech Republic who defeated Italy in the final. The Czechs then lost at the last stone of an extra end in the third game of the World Championship Challenge against Denmark.

The A Division was won at an extra end in a thrilling final by the host nation, Switzerland, their first title for 20 years. Scotland’s World Champions, skipped by David Murdoch were second.

England’s women failed in their first attempt to get to the final of the B Group at the European Championships when they went down to Finland by 7-4 in the first Page Play Off game. However they have another chance when they meet Austria tomorrow (Friday) morning at 8 am. A win then would give them a rematch against Finland and also promotion to the A Division.

The English women’s team at the European Championships in Basel thrilled their supporters with an emphatic win over Austria followed by a very successful draw shot challenge which took them to the top of their Group and guaranteed them a medal.

Austria were left to fight it out with France to finish second and they did so at an extra end. Tonight (Thursday) England take on Finland in the first Page Play-off game with the winners going straight to the Group B final and the losers getting a second chance in the semi-final.

Meanwhile the men’s team were thankful to Russia for coming from behind to defeat Netherlands which produced a three way tie with Hungary and the Netherlands. The men bettered the women in the quality of their draw shot challenge (all 8 draws from both teams were in the 4 foot) and then had to wait while Hungary completed a miserable day for the Netherlands by eiminating them in the first tie break.

Unfortunately, Hungary then completed the double by defeating England in the second tie break, leaving England third in their Group and out of contention. 

As the round Robin stages draw to a close England`s men and women remain in contention for a play-off place in Group B at the European Championships in Basel.

After a very difficult opening day which saw defeats at the hands of Russia (6-8) and Netherlands (3-9) the men have won 5 straight - Belarus (16-1), Poland (12-1), Hungary (10-8), Serbia (14-3) and Greece (13-2) and must be favourites to extend that winning streak when they play Kazakhstan and Estonia in their final round-robin games.

However their fate lies with others as a win for Netherlands over Russia in the final session would almost certainly put them out of the competition.

The women`s last game against Austria is a must-win as defeat would eliminate them after they had earlier lost to France. Their record so far shows 3 victories over Estonia (12-7), Lithuania (10-7) and Spain (10-5) and that one defeat to France (4-8).

The best that both teams can hope for is participation in a three way tie breaker which will mean one or two extra games on Thursday with the hope of qualifying for the play-off games which begin on Thursday evening.

The championships have been marred for many by severe problems with luggage going astray and even today (Tuesday) there are bags missing from flights which arrived last Friday after being delayed by the tornado which struck west London last Thursday. Fortunately the England teams did not lose any bags but the Scottish and Irish teams were not so fortunate.