The Russian women's curling team won the silver medal at the World Championship for the second time in its history.
The team with the skip Alina Kovaleva lost in the final of the tournament in Calgary to the current gold winners from Switzerland with a score of 2: 4.
Russian curlers have won medals for the sixth time in the last seven years.
As a result of the round robin tournament, the Russian girls immediately qualified for the semifinals, bypassing the first round of the playoffs.
The men's team achieved exactly the same result a month ago at their World Championships, also held in Canada.
But then Sergei Glukhov's squad did not manage to develop their success.
Having suffered two defeats in a row, the Russians were left without medals and took fourth place.
The girls managed to avoid the same unpleasant fate.
Their rival in the semifinals was the Swedish team with a skip by Anna Hasselborg.
The current Olympic champions entered the quartet of the strongest after a confident victory over the hosts of the tournament.
In the quarterfinals, the Canadians had to admit defeat after eight ends, when they scored only three points, and the Scandinavians - eight.
The Russian girls already had victorious experience in matches with the Swedes - in a round-robin tournament they prevailed, gaining five points in one of the ends at once.
True, the Scandinavians then immediately responded with four points in the next one, so the Russians did not get an easy walk.
That game ended in nine ends with a score of 10: 8.
The Russians began a new meeting by resetting the first end so that the right to the last throw would pass from odd rounds to even ones.
But this step did not fully justify itself.
In the next draw, Kovaleva failed a throw that could have brought two points, and the team had to be content with one.
But Hasselborg did not play right away - in a similar situation, she also left only one of her stones in the house.
The fourth end was extremely important for the final result. The Russian team managed to bring five stones into the house before the last throw of the Swedes. Hasselborg tried to minimize the advantage of her rivals, but knocked out only two stones. Kovaleva easily added one more, and the Russian national team led with a difference of four points. The fifth end only increased the gap - the Swedish team's skip made a mistake and allowed the Russians to add one more extraordinary point to their piggy bank.
In the next draw, the Swedes tried to return to the game. In order to earn three points with the last throw, all four curlers began to actively sweep, which rarely happens in matches of this level. During the next three ends, the two-point advantage of the Russians remained, but they lost the right to the last shot in the match. In the tenth round, Kovaleva's team tried to play as close as possible, so as not to allow the Swedes to recoup. The Scandinavians had a chance to at least transfer the match to the extra-end, but Hasselborg brought only one point. The Russian national team won and for the second time in its history reached the final.
“We got an advantage in the fourth end, and we just had to keep it and hold it to win.
It was quite difficult, as you can see from the scoreboard, but we were more on the defensive, and therefore the score was closer to the end.
Thanks to my team, we continued to go forward and did it, ”said Kovaleva after the match.
The current skip of the Russian national team already had experience of playing in the finals of the world championships.
In 2017, she occupied the second position in Anna Sidorova's team, who lost in the fight for gold to the favorites from Canada.
Now the Russian women were opposed by the reigning world champions from Switzerland.
They suffered only one defeat in Calgary from the Swedes, and beat the Russian girls with a score of 6: 8 in a round robin tournament.
From the very beginning, the participants in the final did not fight for points, but for the opportunity to inflict the last throw in the tenth end.
This is exactly what the Swiss wanted to achieve by zeroing the first end, but the Russian athletes put their rivals in a position in which they could not be left without a stone in the house.
In the second round, Kovaleva's team could immediately equalize the score, but preferred to reset to zero in order to try their luck in the next round.
The risk did not justify itself.
The last stone of the Russian skip in the third end rolled too weakly, and the partners did not reach the center of the house.
As a result, I had to be content with one point and give the initiative to my rivals.
They took advantage of the opportunity - the former skip of the Swiss national team Alina Petz, who won the world championships three times, was the first to get two points at once in the final match.
To win, the Russian team could not be content with single stones in the house. Sometimes the Swiss made it possible to achieve more with their mistakes, but Kovaleva's decisive shots in such cases did not achieve their goal. She again had to knock someone else's stone along with her own, in order to try to play even better next time. As a result, she zeroed out three ends in a row, and the score was still 3: 1 in favor of the Swiss national team. It was especially offensive for the seventh round, in which one of Kovaleva's stones simply drove past the house.
In the eighth end, the Swiss stopped playing giveaway and at one moment placed five stones in the house at once, while tightly blocking its central part.
The Russians still had to soak their score again, otherwise there would be no point in continuing the final.
There was only hope for the Swiss mistakes, but they played reliably in the final two rounds, and with the last inaccurate throw by Kovaleva, the match ended in favor of the reigning world champions.
Switzerland 🇨🇭makes a double take-out at a crucial point in the game!
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- World Curling (@worldcurling) May 9, 2021