Uiseong, Korea, is the venue for the Pacific Curling Championships this week. Women's teams from Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, and men's teams from the same five countries plus Chinese Taipei, will compete for places at the Capital One World Women’s Curling Championship, Mar 19 - Mar 27, 2011, in Esbjerg, Denmark, and at the Ford World Men's Curling Championship, Apr 2 - Apr 10, Regina, Canada.Scottish interest in South Korea of course is that Kenny Thomson (the blog's New Zealand correspondent) lines up as the alternative for Sean Becker's NZ side, see here.
Each group will play a double round robin. At the end of the round robin series there will be a ranking from 1 to 4 for the playoffs. For the semifinal games, the team ranked number 1 will play a 'best-of-five' series of games against the team ranked number 4, and the team ranked number 2 will play a similar 'best-of-five' series of games against the team ranked number 3. The results of the two games in the double round robin will be considered as the first two games of these 'best-of-five' series. The winners of the Women’s/Men’s semifinal series will play in the Gold/Silver medal games, and all finalists qualify their Associations for the 2011 World Championships. Lots of curling then. First games are on Tuesday morning.
The event website is here if you want to follow what happens.
This photo of the rink is courtesy of Mark Callan
