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2010 Men's World Championships - Cortina d´Ampezzo

Shortly after the Olympics, 12 teams will compete in the Men's World Curling Championships in Cortina, Italy. Some big names are missing and we can only speculate whether this is a decision by players, teams or associations, whether it is fatigue or a drop in form. For example, we don't see Thomas Ulsrud skip the Norwegian team, there is no Scottish classic - David Murdoch's team (David is the fifth player in the team led by Warick Smith - photo), nor Niklas Edin - fourth from the Olympics. The whole opening session was marred by an unfortunate incident at the very end when a young climber failed to control his ascent and fell from a height of about 14 metres straight onto the platform. The fortunate part of the misfortune is that he survived the fall with fractures to both legs and his pelvis, and we all hope that there will be no lasting effects. The ice in the hall is very fast (14,8 - 15,00). It didn't spin much at first - less than three feet, but now it's a little better, we're approaching four feet. So far the Canadians and Scots are up, the Japanese and Swedes are down. The conferences and open meetings are interesting, but worthy of being influenced by the fact that the WCF Executive Committee elections are on Wednesday, so some of the shows are very politically tuned. Tomorrow the meetings continue and we will not stop until Wednesday.