Part of the expedition can go home.
It's an indescribable feeling. The constant fear that something might go wrong. Especially something uncontrollable, or at least almost uncontrollable. We were anxious going into the World Championships last May, we were nervous before Europe, and we felt a slight sense of uncertainty before Olympic qualifying. January's qualifier for the 2022 World Championships in Prince George, Canada, played in Lohja, Finland, proved the pessimists right at the fourth attempt. First one player failed the Covid 19 test in Prague and then two more met the same fate at the venue. Of course, we all passed the PCR test, which we took in Prague within 48 hours before our departure. However, the Finnish tests saw it differently in two cases. It is unfortunate that the B national team was not prepared, or for example the junior national team, which missed its championship a week ago due to several cases of positive tests. This leaves only thirteen of the sixteen teams that were supposed to compete in both categories for the World Championship. I was given permission to move around the grounds and of course went to watch the curling. I was really sad to see lane C empty in the afternoon round, and the score-board just laconically noted Finland - W (win), Czech Republic - L (loss). The hall itself looks good from the outside and inside. The Icemakers have prepared excellent looking ice, 15,3 speed on the tee-line, 4 feet swing. Lack of electronic control on the hog-line and some players are taking advantage of it. There is a big performance gap between the participants. There are Olympic athletes from Denmark, but also not very good Brazilians. But we are not affected. There is no point in arguing about what exactly happened, because there is a plethora of possibilities. The fact remains that one of the highlights of the season disappeared like steam over a pot, leaving only an aftertaste and bitterness. And that includes the not-so-successful commentary of the federation's journalist Martin Bukovský, published on the federation's website, who this time added factual inaccuracies to the traditional mistakes. Yet it is so easy to call and check.
rnphoto: indoor and lanes during the evening round, lane A should have belonged to the Czechs