The World Senior Curling Championships 2006

Media Relations Officer Håkan Sundström IDROTTSHUSET, Mårbackagatan 19 S -123 43 FARSTA, Sweden E-mail: hakan.sundstrom@curling.se Fax: +46 8 604 70 78 * Telephone: +46 8 683 30 16 The World Senior Curling Championships 2006 to start at Taarnby in Denmark with 27 teams from 17 nations Tomorrow Saturday the 2006 World Senior Curling Championships for men and women will start at Taarnby Curling Club outside Copenhagen in Denmark. This is the first time since the start of official World Senior Curling Championships in 2002 that the event will be organised completely separated from any other World Championhips. Last year in Paisley, Scotland the senior event was together with the World Women’s Championships. This year altogether 27 teams from 17 nations will participate. There are 15 men teams and 12 women teams. As last year Group A of each gender consist of the best ranked teams from last year. The three best teams of the A-groups will advance to the semi finals as the winner of the B-groups. The 1st ranked team in A will play against the 1st ranked team in B, the winner goes to the Gold Medal game and the loser goes to the Bronze medal game. The 2nd ranked team in A will play against the 3rd ranked team in A, the winner goes to the Gold Medal game and the loser goes to the Bronze medal game. Following teams are playing at the World Seniors according to their ranking from last year: Women A: Scotland, Japan, Sweden, Canada, Switzerland and England. Women B: USA, The Netherlands, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand and Denmark. Men A: Canada, USA, Switzerland, England, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Scotland. Men B: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Wales, Japan, Iceland and Estonia. The round-robin of each group will be played from Saturday to Thursday. Friday morning and afternoon are reserved for tie-breakers. The semi finals will take place on Friday night. The bronze medal games on Saturday morning an the two finals at 14.00 local time on Saturday March 11th. Looking at the team rosters we find some well-known names with big success at former international Championships. The Swedish men is skipped by Jan Ullsten, the first official World Junior Champion skip in 1975 who also won a silver medal at the World Men´s Championship in 1974 and also played the World Championship in 1981. His third in Taarnby is Björn Rudström who in 1977 won both the World and European Championships. He also won a silver in the European Championships. The front-end in the Swedish team Lars Strandquist and Lars Engblom were European champions in 1987. Also the Swiss men´s team has famous curlers. Matti Neuenschwander, Bernhard Attinger and Peter Attinger played for Switzerland at the World Championships in Berne both in 1974 (3rd) and 1979 (2nd). They were European Champions in 1976 and last year they won the bronze at the World senior championships in Paisley. In the Norwegian team both Tormod Andreassen and Jan Kolstad have played the World Men´s Championship before. In the women´s competition Japan will come with nearly the same team that won the World senior silver medal last year in Paisley. The Swedish team won the World Senior silver medals in 2004 and bronze medals last year. In the team Ingrid Meldahl, Ann-Catrin Kjerr and Sylvia Liljefors played the World Women´s Championship in 1984 and Birgitta Törn won silver medal at the both the World and European Championships in 1979. For more information, click on the website for the World Seniors Championships: http://www.wscc2006.com/