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Some championships …

Some championships receive less attention than others. This is especially true for those that take place during the Olympic season and are thus overshadowed by that one great celebration of winter sports—which have the privilege of being united under the Olympic rings. The media buzz is slowly dying down after the nineteen-day marathon; only a few echoes remain, among which the Canadian one—concerning the dispute over a probable rule violation—is still the most prominent. I wonder if the World Curling Federation will revisit this matter and address it, especially given the evident gaps in the currently valid rules and the apparent technical backwardness in equipping top-tier curling competitions with the necessary technologies. Meanwhile, the Women’s World Championship was held somewhat quietly. Thanks to the fact that the venue was Calgary, Canada, we can consider the spectator turnout more than respectable, which was evident from the televised matches, which were again broadcast via the paid platform Curling Channel (?). The championship had several interesting highlights. The Danish team, significantly weakened by illness, played part of the championship with only three players. Young teams, previously unseen at the level of adult world championships, such as the USA, Norway, Australia, but also Scotland, Switzerland, and even Sweden. And finally, the fact that two of the three sets of medals went to teams making their World Championship debut is noteworthy. Experience wasn’t enough for the Canadian team (Einarsson), which lost in the final to the better-playing Swiss (X. Schwaller). They brought in Canadian skip John Epping as a reinforcement for their coaching staff, and he may have been the decisive wild card, ultimately outsmarting the Canadians’ coach, Reid Carruthers, with a bit of luck. The result is proof of the clear dominance of Swiss women’s curling, which takes gold even though it did not field the current world’s best team (Tirinzoni).