More photos from the Euro Mixed

From top: Glen Muirhead who plays last stones for Scotland; the Scottish team in action against England; Lana Watson, England´s third, played some great shots against Scotland; Scottish supporters were interviewed by a local television station during the game - ´Is this an air horn I see before me?´; the Irish supporters were much better behaved (for results see official scores here); a rule (or should that be a decision - or even an indecision) of umpires. L-R Mats Olofsson, Dor Borthwick, Leslie Ingram-Brown, Eeva Rothlisberger, Christine Shaw); Dor and Leslie do a DSD (draw shot distance) as a Russian team member observes (should this be a caption competition pic?); and finally - a stone.

You are NOT going to believe this. The stones or rocks or chuckies or bricks or granites or Ailsas (call them what you want) are BRAND NEW. Straight out of the box, never been on a sheet of ice before, delivered straight to Madrid from Kays, never been matched. They belong to the World Curling Federation. And is there uncertainty over how some stones are playing? Yes, of course there is. I don´t usually spout my opinions in the blog, leaving this to the magazine (subscribe here!), but the decision to use a completely new set of stones in a major championship was surely misguided! Especially as the ice technicians are doing a great job under difficult conditions.

Right, off to enjoy another blue sky day and to see who makes it through the tiebreakers into tonight´s quarterfinals.