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Curling in Hradec Kralove

On Saturday morning, curling players began to descend on Hradec Králové to present the Olympic medal sport, played with granite stones on specially prepared ice, for the first time in the Christmas tournament. The icemakers (Jiří Marša and Vítek Nekovařík) did a great job and the players really could not complain about the quality of the ice or the organization of the tournament. The tournament had its final on Sunday afternoon, and the Czech junior national team playing without their captain Krystof Chaloupek (Lukáš Klíma, Tomáš Paul, Jiří Deyl and David Jirounek) was in excellent form. The juniors easily beat the Zbraslav team in the final and won a financial prize and a sponsor's gift - a bottle of special brandy. In Hradec Králové, curling events for interested youth, companies and other members of the public continue on Monday. The Czech Curling Federation has instructors here and expects curling to catch on in the region and attract new players, teams and clubs (e.g. CC Riper).