11.03.2019,
Winter Universiade 2019 - finished.
On the third of April 2009, I posted on my blog in Moncton, Canada, "
Arena prepares, Eigiel coaches the kids, and Gunther narrates." I stated that 11-year-old Magnus Ramsfjell is a skip because he considers himself the best player on his team. Ten years later, Magnus, the son of world champion Eigiel, whom I spoke to at the time, led the Norwegians to a gold medal at the Winter Universiade in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. The Canadians took silver and the second bronze in a matter of weeks was won by Britain's (Scotland's) Ross Whyte when he and his team beat Switzerland. The women were dominated by the Swedes, beaten by our national team in their first match. Isabele Wrana's team is an excellent backup to the Nordic number one, Team Hasselborg. Pete Lindholm is clearly doing a great job as Sweden's national coach. The Koreans are second and the Russians third. After a promising start, the Czech women dropped out and finished ninth. The men fought hard, got some good results, but in the end it is only sixth place, two places worse than two years ago when Lukáš Klíma's team fought directly for the medals. The best result of the Czech academics will remain the bronze from 2011 (Klíma, Candra, Paul, Jirounek, Chaloupek) for a while. It is too early to analyse the reasons for these results, but it will certainly be necessary to reflect on the system of preparation of the Czech teams. Our national teams are not bringing much success in the current season, but also in last year's or the year before, and so there is only one sting in the fire for this year, and that is Mixed Doubles, whose World Championships are in April 2019 in Norway.