Women's World Cup 2019 Qualification.
It's a strange mixture of feelings. I'm talking about the women's national curling team and this season. A successful entry into a competition of the highest European quality, the European Championships. Then a series of narrow defeats against opponents we usually win against, even though the historical records are very close. In the last match comes a performance upturn which, together with a much needed result on a different track, leaves us unscathed in the long term orbit of Olympic preparation. So far, great and maximum. Eighth place at the European Championships opens the door to our next top competition, the World Championships. And here's the rub. The eighth and ninth place teams from the European Championships, along with six other teams (two more from Europe and four from the rest of the world) have the right to fight for two places at the 2019 World Championships, where there are a total of thirteen participating countries in the starting field. The problem is the venue of the world qualification and, in principle, the date. 17-23 January 2019 in Naseby, New Zealand. In previous years, the ongoing championship still featured challenge matches between the winner of Group B and the country that did not advance directly to the World Championships as the first country to qualify from Group A. So at the end of November, the Europeans and Europeans were in the clear. Now, newly, they are not, with the European qualifiers, who have to count on at least five days of acclimatisation each way, having a very short time to decide whether they are going or giving their place to someone else. The estimated difficulty of traveling to a country where it is full summer in January and thus there is no place to train at the venue (just no ice) is extreme. Start of the trip no later than January 9, return no earlier than January 26. Eighteen-day trip, with the flight from Prague to Christchurch taking around 35 hours with connections, and on the more southern of the two New Zealand islands, you have to factor in a five-hour car journey to Naseby.rnAs of today (21 December 2018), the qualifying tournament will take place in three and a half weeks and to this day the participating countries have not been announced and the game schedule is not available. There is still no information on the World Curling Federation website for this event, except for a summary of the WCF sponsors.rnWe would love to make Czech curling visible again by participating in the World Championships, but this time the decision is really difficult.rnThe Czech women's team has finally decided not to participate in the qualification tournament for the 2019 Women's World Championships (New Zealand, January 2019) with the following comments:rnrnrnrnWe have carefully considered the whole situation and repeatedly consulted with our closest people. The unanimous decision of the team is not to participate in the WQE, for the following reasons:rn
- rn t
- The budget for the whole event (exceeding, according to our calculations, the amount of 400.000,- CZK) does not, in our opinion, outweigh the potential benefits of participation. We do not consider it effective and reasonable to invest such a sum of money in this event. (possible participation in the Women's World Championships 2018 will in no way advance the Czech Republic to participation in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games) rn t
- extreme transport requirements, including on-site transfers, dramatically increase the time required for team acclimatisation, and quite disproportionately rn t
- Anna Kubeskova's team is approximately in the first third of the Olympic cycle and has two WCT tournaments scheduled for the near future, which are part of the preparation for the 2022 Winter Olympics, along with the women's extra-league round during the period in question. The two and a half week-long disruption in the training and competition rhythm is not in the interest of maintaining the team's current performance .rn t
- personal, work and study circumstances are also difficult to deal with rn
rnrnIt's a mix of emotions. We're giving it everything we can, but something is really over the edge for us. Unfortunately.rnrnphoto: curling in NZ