Estonia takes second Milano Cortina Winter Olympics mixed doubles victory
Estonian mixed curling pair Marie Kaldvee and Harri Lill took their second win in the round robin preliminaries at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy, beating a stalwart team of the sport, Canada, 8:6 Saturday evening.
Kaldvee and Lill now have two wins and four losses to their name, with three more matches left to go.
The 10 teams who qualified all play each other, making for nine matches, with the top four going through to the medals games which start Tuesday.
Estonia lost 9:7 to Switzerland in a closely fought match in their opening game earlier in the week, losing again the next day, 10:5 to the Scottish duo of Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat, representing Great Britain. They then posted their first win of the tournament in the next round, against Sweden, who they defeated 7:5 on Thursday. On Friday the team faced hosts and reigning Olympic champions Italy, losing 7:4, and Kaldvee and Lill had to accept their fourth defeat on Saturday afternoon, after losing closely, 6:5, to Norwegian pair Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten.
Next up on Saturday evening were the Canadians, Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant.
The Estonian pair got off to a superb start, as Kaldvee scored three points with the final stone in the first end, and the team added two more with a steal in the second end.
The Canadians used a power play in the fourth end to get their first points on the board and cut the deficit to 6:2. In the fifth end, Kaldvee and Lill battled out of a difficult situation to take one point, but in the next end the Canadian pair amassed three points.
Estonia used their power play in the seventh end and extended the lead to 8:5. In the final end, they allowed their opponents to score just a single point, winning the match 8:6.
As of Saturday evening, Kaldvee and Lill sit in eighth place among the 10 teams. They face South Korea and the U.S. on Sunday.
Sports historian Dr Matt McDowell of the University of Edinburgh gave ERR News the background on the origin of the sport, from an article originally published on Swiss sports site 24heures.ch (link in French). Curling originated in Scotland, with first traces dating to the 16th century. By the early 19th century, a poem referenced the granite of Ailsa Craig, a small but iconic uninhabited island just off the Ayrshire coast in Southwest Scotland. The game was already deeply rooted in Scottish society before it was codified nationally, in 1838. Ailsa Craig has been supplying all Olympic curling stones since the Winter Olympics began just over 100 years ago, with its two varieties of granite being prized for their elasticity and impermeability.
More on the rules of curling is here and from the World Curling organization here.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
