Balance of the 2019 European Curling Championships.
I can't start any other way than to congratulate the Czech men's team (Lukáš Klíma, Marek Černovský, Jiří Candra, Samuel Mokriš and Radek Boháč, coach Craig Savill, assistant Jan Zelingr) for reaching the A group - see photo. The unsuccessful series of attempts lasting three years has stopped only this year and a pleasant change is the advancement to the final in Group B, which means for the next European Championships the participation of the Czech men's national team in the elite group. In addition, the boys will travel to an additional qualification tournament (Lohje, Finland) in January to qualify for the 2020 World Championships. In the semi-finals, the Czechs clearly outplayed the Turks thanks to a bizarre eighth end in which both teams deliberately switched thirteen stones. The Czechs will be accompanied to the qualification by the Finns, who outclassed the ambitious Poles. In the women's event, the Turks and Italians made it through the B group. The Slovaks are in the C group after a nerve-wracking duel with the Hungarians.rn
But back to Group A and an assessment of the trends. The Scots take bronze in the men's and the Swiss in the women's. Both finals have Swedish representation (in the women against the Scots, in the men against the Swiss), and that clearly tells you who is playing in Europe. The top of European curling is about professionalism, and at the moment it is for five countries. Full-time coaches, sponsors, travel agents, working with statisticians, psychologists, physiotherapists, fitness coaches, as well as marketers and PR specialists are all becoming standard and part of an inexorably advancing process. The Czech women's national team once again left a great impression and the match against Germany was effectively a straight fight for fifth place in Europe. It was disappointing to lose to Estonia, where we couldn't maintain our usual performance, which would probably have been enough to win. The top teams have a precisely worked out game with five stones in the free guard zone, they control the intermediate game, they have an effective endgame, they have a working technique, they throw solidly and they can surprise. We've definitely improved in all of those areas, but we know there are reserves that we need to focus on. The real athletes, great athletes and perfect ambassadors of Czech curling are Anna Kubešková, Alžběta Baudyšová, Petra Vinšová, Ežen Kolčevskaia and Michaela Baudyšová. They deserve the thanks of the entire Czech curling community for their fighting spirit, efforts and success on an international scale. Hopefully, the Czech sports media will also take notice and appreciate the fact that for several years now this extraordinary Czech women's team has been at the top of the Olympic medal sport. In curling.