Prague Classic 2024.
A dozen men's curling teams played in a tournament billed as a triple-header on the second weekend of November. The venue was the Roztyl curling hall. The teams were divided into two groups of six and each three advanced to the extra session. Despite the complete absence of foreign national teams, six Czech teams failed to succeed, with the honourable exception of the men's national team. Although Klíma, Černovský, Jurík, Klípa and Boháč lost in the group to the Italian team (Pimpini) and then in the final to Nyman (Sweden), they saved the prestige of Czech curling, which otherwise was at the bottom of the table in the individual groups. The resulting second place of the Czechs is a repetition of last year's result. The Czech junior team (Pěnička, Žďárský, Kaska, Krátký, Tahal) gave a good performance. First they lost narrowly to the Poles (Stych), then they lost heavily to the later fourth-placed Norwegians (Harstad), then they cherished their hopes of advancing by winning against the current third Czech men's team (Vedral). However, the final pair of games played in close succession did not bring any more wins. Nevertheless, the Czech juniors did not lose their way in the adult team competition and showed a promising and dignified performance. The third place went to the Italians. The trophy belongs again to the young Swedes (Nyman, Patz, Mabergs, Olofsson), just like last year. Let's hope that the smooth running of the Prague tournament will be reflected in an increase in interest and higher participation in the next edition.
rnphoto: winners from Sweden