Women's World Curling Championships 2023.
The host of the championship was Sweden, specifically the town of Sandviken, in the Gävleborg region, with a population of just under forty thousand. The list of participating countries included some less frequently seen at the highest level. For example, players from New Zealand or Turkey are not among the regular opponents during the peak curling season. In recent years, due to finances, it has not been easy to find a host country, so after the mandatory, covidem complicated option of hosting the World Championships in Canada (Saint George and Calgary) was sold, the search was long in Europe. And there again, Scandinavia came up.
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This year's championships were still without the allocation of Olympic points, which probably detracted somewhat from the appeal and spectator interest. The half-empty, almost empty auditorium of the Gὅransson Arena formed a somewhat undignified backdrop to the performances of the world's top women's curling team. Particularly in the first half of the regular season, the variable quality of the ice surface, which could have caused some to lose their wins, was more of a factor than the performance of the teams. In the end, the results crystallized into only one big surprise, namely the successful Norwegian team (Roervick). The sovereigns were the Swiss Tirinzoni, Pätz, Howald and Schwaller (coaches Kjell and Charette). Even in their winning campaign through the whole tournament (14 wins, no losses) they went over thirty (37) consecutive games won at the World Championships. Their win in the final over the aforementioned surprise, the Norks, was not easy to come by, but Alina Pätz played a perfect draw at the right moment to stave off an impending loss. In third place are the Canadians, who beat the Swedes, followed by the Japanese and Italians. The disappointing performance was that of the Skoteks, bronze medallists at the 2022 European Championships, who finished 12th, just ahead of the New Zealanders, who are completely out of the world class.
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The format of the World Traditional Curling Championships itself is the subject of great debate, involving evergreens such as the number of ends to be played (10 versus 8) or the number and system of qualifying participants. Somewhat in the background are the technical deficits exhibited over the last few years, especially the control of the throw on the hog-line. Another problematic circumstance is the system and the use of regular evening practice sessions in the event of so-called "papering the rocks" during the championship. The question is whether it would not be a solution to extend the pre-match training sessions so that directly at the training sessions and just before the match the players can test the stones as they need to.