Surprise announcement came today

A cryptic news release from the World Curling Federation has announced the Chinese Curling Association have withdrawn their teams entered into the inaugural 2022 Pan Continental Curling Championships in Calgary, Canada.

The WCF said they were informed of the withdrawal today.

China four-player women’s and men’s teams were scheduled to compete in the event’s A-Division. The women’s team will now be replaced by Chinese Taipei, while the men’s team will be replaced by Kazakhstan.

UPDATED: Australia’s men’s team successfully appealed for the PCCC berth originally given to Kazakhstan.

The Pan Continental event replaces the Pacific-Asia Championships and merges them with the Americas Challenge. Both events were critical paths to qualifying for the men’s and women’s world four-player championships, where success over a quadrennial led to Olympic qualification points.

China’s withdrawal is stunning, in the assumption that no Chinese teams will have a chance to compete at the 2023 world championships.

Prior to last February’s Beijing Olympic Winter Games, where China’s teams failed to qualify for tiebreakers or playoffs, few Chinese teams had trained or competed outside their national borders since late 2019 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.