Canada women beaten at curling worlds

Canada’s Kerri Einarson will play for bronze once more.

Einarson fell 8-5 to Norway’s Marianne Roervik in the world women’s curling championship semifinals on Saturday. The Manitoba-based rink will face host Sweden in today’s bronzemedal game.

It will be the second consecutive bronze-medal matchup against Sweden for Einarson, vice-skip Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard, lead Briane Harris and alternate Krysten Karwacki. Canada topped Sweden 8-7 for a podium finish in 2022. Tied 5-5, and with Norway having sat three in the ninth end, Canada’s attempt to draw in was light, giving the Norwegians an 8-5 lead. Canada conceded with one end remaining.

“It was a pretty unfortunate ninth end with too many backto-back misses,” Einarson said. “We got ourselves in some trouble and I made a good one on my first, but she came up with a really good shot.

“I think we needed to leave our first one a hair higher or go deeper. We were right in between and it was just top four. We needed tee-line or better.”

Sweden dropped an 8-4 decision in the other semifinal to Switzerland, which will look to repeat as world champion today against Norway.

Einarson entered the semifinals having defeated Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa 6-4 in extra ends earlier Saturday in a qualification game.

Down 1-0 following the opening end, Canada responded with a two-point third end to take the lead. However, Norway swiftly responded with three in the following end to take a 4-2 edge.