The fans have arrived.
The men opened the second day of the European Curling Championships against Germany. An evenly matched opening game quickly took its toll as the Germans managed to put a three and a four in quick succession to build a decisive lead midway through the match. The Czechs tried to get back into the match, but their opponent defended the lead with precise defensive play. The women faced the Estonians in a match played from 2 pm. We see this team often and we got into Group A together with them after last year's successful campaign in Group B. In the third end, the Estonians threatened for the first time with a three after a millimetre-accurate runback by Marie Kaldvee. Halfway through the game, we were losing. But the second half belonged to the Czech team. After nine ends we were up by one point and in the tenth we held one better stone near the middle. The Estonians did not play the necessary hit and roll accurately, while we did. The middle of the lane was filled with stones of both colours and Marie had to try a heavy runback double. She missed and the win goes to the Czechs. The men played an even match with the Scots in the evening, but in the end they couldn't find a recipe for the home team's precise play and narrowly lost. It rained, it got colder and the fans, Petra and Radek Baudyš arrived.
rnphoto: Klára Svatoňová, lead