Several mixed doubles teams did not show up for practice.

The Czech team trained this morning. The group of icemakers (including Jiri Marsha) prepared five lanes out of fourteen in Chelyabinsk hall. Six of them are for the senior competition, three are for commercial purposes!? and the remaining five are for MD. Along with us on the ice were the Swiss (two-time world champions), the New Zealanders (the Becker siblings), whom we know from NZWG 2009, the Chinese - also old friends, and the Austrians. We talked with Joe Fritz and Jirka Marsha about the ice. So far it's running at about 13.8 to 14.00 and the spin is a bit erratic, but it's all going to settle down and the ice will definitely be up to WCF standards or better. At the team meeting we confirmed some of the information circulating on social media, namely that the Norwegians won't arrive at all, the Scots, Swedes, Canadians, Americans, Koreans, Finns (and one other country, I don't know what now) are having trouble with air travel (volcanic dust cloud) and should arrive within today or tomorrow at the latest. Tonight is the opening ceremony, for which more than a thousand tickets have already been sold, and then the opening banquet. Changes in our game times are coming into consideration, so we need to be ready starting now to get into the game.

photo from training: the team, KK as Rus, Anna and Karel checking the placement of the stone - Jirka Marša is watching in the background