Dutch, Estonians Take Euro-B Curling Gold

Just as the inaugural Pan-Continental B-Division teams received kudos, so do the European Championship B-Division squads deserve the same.

While Scotland and Denmark took the Euro A-Division headlines, the battles for B-pool supremacy—and berths into next year’s A route—were fierce.

In Group A men’s side action, Finland picked up their sixth win, an 11-4 victory over Estonia, to top the rankings and head straight to the men’s semifinals.

Behind them were Wales and Ireland, and they—along with England—shared a 4-3 won/loss record. However, the results among these three teams meant that Wales ranked second, Ireland third and England fourth. As a result, Wales and Ireland moved on to the qualification games, while England’s campaign ended.

The top three teams in men’s Group B were Netherlands, France and Latvia. Netherlands and France shared the same 6-1 win-loss record, but Netherlands ranked first because they won their head-to-head encounter.

France then won their way to the B-Division semifinals with a tight 6-5 win over the Irish. However, their run came to an end against the Finns, who took their semifinal bout by a 6-3 scoreline.

In the other men’s semi, Netherlands walloped Latvia 13-1, after the Latvians had defeated Wales 12-8 in the other qualification game.

With promotion to the A-Division already assured for both teams, The Dutch men skipped by Wouter Goesgens went 5-0 up after three ends in their final against Finland’s Kalle Kiiskinen, and went on to score B-Division gold by a 11-6 scoreline.

In the bronze medal game, France beat Latvia 10-3.

It’s the first siginficant medal result for French curlers in many years, harkening back to the days of Thomas Dufour’s French men’s team in the late 2000s.

We can only assume that French skip Eddie Mercier is related to Thierry Mercier, who preceded Dufour by competing in six world championships for France between 1984 and 2000.

The younger Mercier also won C-Division gold in 2019, and silver in 2017.

Finishing their women’s B-Group campaign with a 13-1 win over Slovakia, Czech Republic topped the 10-team women’s rankings with an 8-1 won/loss record.

Estonia had the same 8-1 finish as the Czechs, but lost out on the head-to-head results to rank second overall.

Third were Lithuania and fourth were Slovenia, to complete the women’s semifinal lineup.

The women’s semis saw Czech Republic edge Slovenia 8-7, while Estonia were narrow 7-6 extra-end winners over Lithuania.

The results meant a gold medal matchup for the Czechs and Estonians, plus both were promoted to next season’s A-Division.

Estonia’s Marie Kaldvee took the gold medals courtesy of a 10-3 victory over Czech Republic’s Alzbeta Zelingrova. In the women’s bronze game, Lithuania beat Slovenia by a 10-6 count.

Relegation

At the other end of the women’s table, Spain went down 10-3 to Austria to finish their round-robin without a win. Spain are now relegated to the C-Division, as are Slovakia in the second-bottom slot.

Slovakia had the same 3-6 won-loss record as England and Austria, but lost out on the head-to-head performances among the three teams.

In the men’s round-robin, Belgium maintained their place in the B-Division following a 10-2 playoff win against Ukraine, last season’s surprise C-Division champions.

The Ukrainians had finished their Group A pool at 3-4 while Belgium’s B-pool effort saw them at 2-5.

The Ukrainians then went into a second relegation battle against Estonia, who were 5-4 winners over Slovenia in an extra-end relegation battle.

This result means that Slovenia are relegated to next season’s C-Division.

In the final relegation playoff, Estonia beat Ukraine 6-5 to stay in the 2023 B-Division, while Ukraine are now relegated back to the C-Division.