MS MD
The last seasonal championship that spoke to the list of countries competing in next February's Olympics was the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Championships. Fredericton, Canada, hosted twenty bidders for a ticket to Cortina d'Ampezzo. Among them was the Czech pair Zelingrova, Chabičovský. After managing to defend last year's Group A with a sixteenth place, the number of Olympic points on the Czech account did not give too many other options than to fight their way to the medal positions. However, the Czech tandem was far from that and even struggled at the very end to at least retain the elite group for next year. In the match against China they managed to do so, although it was also thanks to the abundant help of the opponent, who failed to handle the end of the match, made a gross error and allowed Julia and Vít to get an important and valuable victory. The Czech players put in a hard-working and at times very good performance, playing some close matches against rivals who are ranked higher on the ladder and even defeating the star Swiss pair Paetz, Michel, but it was not enough to more than just narrowly retain their participation in next year's World Championships. The surprise of the championships was definitely the Australians, but in the end even a bronze medal after a win over Estonia by one point was not enough for the Olympic eight, unlike just Kaldvee, Lill (EST), who had already made a strong bid for the Olympics at the last championships. The final was only a seven-day event. The Italian pair of Constantini, Mosaner outplayed that Scottish pair of Dodds, Mouat and strode resolutely for the gold medals, first with a stolen deuce in end four and then especially with a deuce in end seven, when Constantini's brilliant, 100% accurate runback knocked the only Scottish stone out of the ring and the five-point lead was no longer up for grabs for the Scots. The Estonian team are thus somewhat unexpectedly in the top eight, but this is rather historic as they have shown a high standard of play over the last two years. No more big surprises. The remaining two spots at the Olympics will be a tight squeeze, with a complete Asian team in addition to the Czechs, the upstart Aussies, as well as the Germans, Danes and Dutch.rn
photo: winners from Italy