TV battle with the home team, including the audience.
photo - after the match with China
rnThe evening match came after a short break, in which we managed to eat, stretch and change clothes. Training from 6:30 local time gave the home team China (Wang) the advantage in the first end. The Chinese are a very experienced team that has been on the international scene for many years, with success at the World Championships and honours at the Olympic Games. Today was their first win after two opening losses. The beginning of the match was better for us and we even created a small lead. The difference was mainly in the performance of the back end (skip and viceskip). By half time we were outplaying our opponents because of it. Then Wang came out. After ten ends, the score was tied. We had to stave off the loss with a heavy tap back and Wang matched it to within five feet on the extra end. The Chinese managed to create quite a promising position thanks to two of our stones in the back of the rings. With a minute to go before the end of the time limit, Anna went for the last stone to push away the opponent's best stone so far and still had to round a bit towards the middle. The unruly spectators chanted loudly and some even shouted and made strange noises. Anna maintained her icy calm. Clara and Terka's diligent throwing and Betya and Anna's precise vision of the direction finally arranged for a slight offset of the red stone and a small roll that settled our stone about an inch closer to the center. In the end, a hard-earned, hard-working and close win that makes us happy, among other things, because it could be seen by millions of viewers around the world. No, I know they couldn't, but at least our fans could, and that makes us very happy. Welcome home and we'll be up early again tomorrow for the next two games.