Hosts Canada come from behind to beat Scotland as World Men's Curling Championship gets underway
BySportsbeat
Updated 02/04/2021 at 21:35 GMT
The home nation are bidding for a record 37th world title. The event is the first in the qualification process for the 2022 Winter Olympics, with the top six placed nations qualifying directly for Beijing. "We were resilient in that game," Canadian skip Brendan Bottcher said. "We battled hard and that was a big win for us."
Curling test event, National Aquatics Center, known as the Ice Cube, Beijing, April 2, 2021.
Image credit: Getty Images
Canada, Italy, Norway and Russia got the World Men's Curling Championship underway with victories in the opening session in Calgary, Canada.
The hosts, who are the record 36-time World Champions, saw off a resilient challenge from Scotland, with Bruce Mouat's team taking 2-1 and 5-2 leads before scores of two in the sixth and seventh ends turned the tide for Canada as they went on to win 9-6.
"We were resilient in that game," Canadian skip Brendan Bottcher said.
"We battled hard and that was a big win for us. We got some momentum, even throughout that game it felt like we picked up momentum as the game went on."
Elsewhere, Italy hammered South Korea 7-1 while Russia saw off the Netherlands 8-5.
Meanwhile, 2014 World Champions Norway got their campaign underway with a nail-biting 7-6 victory over Denmark, which saw Norwegian skip Steffan Walstad spare his blushes in the extra end, having jammed a stone in the tenth end to give the Danish team a steal.
The event is the first in the qualification process for the 2022 Winter Olympics, with the top six placed nations qualifying directly for Beijing.
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