Curling: Muirhead’s Scots set for world title bid in Latvia

The world curling focus moves to Latvia’s capital Riga when the World Women’s Curling Championship gets under way today, with 12 of the top teams from international curling taking part.

This is the first curling World Championship to be staged in Latvia, and Scotland will be represented by the national champions, the Eve Muirhead team – Anna Sloan, Vikki Adams, Claire Hamilton and new alternate Lauren Gary, along with coach David Hay, who have travelled with real medal hopes.

The 12 teams who have qualified for this event are: Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, hosts Latvia, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA.

There are many familiar names among the competitors. However, they do not include current world champion Mirjam Ott from Switzerland. She lost the right to defend her title when her team was beaten by the team skipped by Silvana Tirinzoni in the Swiss national championship final.

Among the newcomers is Canada’s Rachel Homan who will wear the Maple Leaf for the first time at this level, and she faces Scotland today in what will be her first-ever appearance at this level. The Scots then have two games tomorrow against Sweden and Germany.

Round-robin play continues throughout next week, with the medal games scheduled for next weekend.