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Monday, April 23, 2012

World Mixed Doubles in Turkey

If you had said to me say, five years ago, that I would be watching live coverage of a complicated pairs format of curling from eastern Turkey one evening in April 2012, I would probably have laughed. How fast is the pace of change in the curling world.

And it's great!

The first round of the World Mixed Doubles in Erzurum has just begun. See here. The World Curling Federation's link with YouTube is proving to be as solid as it was with the World Juniors. Commentary this time is by a Norwegian (Sander Rølvåg) and a Swede (Sara Carlsson), in English, on a game between Italy and Spain. Good choice of game to webcast too, with young players on both sides, and good to show this now the event has been severed from the its association with the World Seniors. You may remember that the same two young Spaniards took Scotland to the last stone in Vierumaki four years ago, see here. They were just thirteen and fifteen years old then.

Twenty-seven countries are involved!

I've always been a big fan of Mixed Doubles. We have a Scottish MDs championship. Next season, this will be held at the Dewar's Centre in Perth. Perhaps some tuning in to watch this week's world event, might be tempted to enter. Entry forms are already available for download, here. Next year the World MDs are to be in Canada, the venue still to be announced. (ADDED LATER: Just announced, they are to be in Fredericton, New Brunswick, see here.)

Scotland is not on in this round in Erzurum. Judith and Lee will play their first game tomorrow morning against Romania, and will be on the ice again later in the day against Sweden. That game will be webcast. See the full schedule here.

Top photo is a screenshot from the WCF/YouTube webcast.