Wrapping up the weekend

It was another busy weekend to round up! Let's start off with the Edinburgh International, a new WCT-e event, although the competition and the trophy have a long history. The winners (above) were L-R Andy Kapp (skip), Holger Hohne (2nd), Andy Lang (3rd) and Andreas Kempf (lead). The results are here.

A few more reminders of Murrayfield follow:

The runners-up received the famous Berne Bear trophy. L-R Conny Llungqvist, Goran Carlsson (skip), Morgan Bergkvist and Magnus Ekdahl.

You don't often see Andy Kapp getting this excited on the ice!

Goran Carlsson

The Senior Championships shared the stage on Sunday with the International event. The winners were L-R Alan Collett, Frank Forrest, Jim Wood and Michael Sutherland (skip) who beat Alan Durno's team of Peter Fraser, Willie Young and Mike Watt in the final. Gary Macfarlane's side beat Ken Watson's team in the Low Road. Find the linescores and other results here.

My favourite pic from the Seniors final!

Now this is the furthest travelled fan at Murrayfield this weekend. Andrea Boling had come from Florida. Highlight of this self-confessed curling groupie's Scottish holiday was to be watching David Murdoch play! However, Team Murdoch exited early and Andrea didn't get the chance to watch her curling idol. When the Ed heard about the story he rounded up RCCC President Matt Murdoch, whose main claim to fame of course is that he is David's dad, and arranged for Andrea to meet him instead. Not sure how impressed Andrea was, but we all hope her holiday this week in Scotland will have better outcomes!

Elsewhere, in Wetzikon in the International ZO Women's Tournament, Vicki Adams, Karen Addison, Rachael Simms and Anne Laird won three of the five games in their section, but just missed out, on ranking, on getting through to the playoff stages. Mirjam Ott's team won that WCT-e title.

At Greenacres, in the U-17 Baljaffray competition, Blair Fraser, Thomas Sloan, Kirsten McNay and Jennifer Martin beat Gavin Reid, Kyle Waddell, Craig Waddell and Andrew Muir in the final. The scores are all on the RCCC website here.

But my player of the weekend award goes to Angie Malone (below). Many of those who follow wheelchair curling will know that Angie, a Paralympic silver medallist from Pinerolo and a member of the current GB squad, has been fighting some health concerns. Despite her worries, she decided to play in the British Open this weekend at Kinross. And she skipped her team of Ian Donaldson, Jim Elliot and Jim Taylor to a 6-4 win over Jim Gault's side in the final! Results are all here.

Angie, we're all rooting for you!

Pics by Bob.

Eve in Wetzikon, but not really!

All eyes may be on the Edinburgh International at Murrayfield, but there is another WCT-e event this weekend, the ZO in Wetzikon, in the women's tour.

Eve Muirhead's team is listed in the draw for this 24-team event. But she won't be there. Instead, Karen Addison, Vicki Adams, Rachael Simms and Annie Laird will line up as the Institute four.

Four sections of six, five games. The Scots are up first against Petra Tschetsch from Germany at 12.30 tomorrow (Friday).

Find the results here. If you want to see what the rink looks like it has a webcam here.

Our under-17 teams are in action too this weekend at the Baljaffray in Greenacres. Twenty-two teams are signed up. The draw is here.

This is the second version of the post. First version had incorrect info, sorry.

WCT-e launches International Junior Tour

Inverness will host one of three events which will make up a new tour for the top junior teams in Europe next season. The series has been organised by the World Curling Tour-Europe. The elite tour is designed for the best European junior teams to test their skills against their rivals on a regular basis in international competition.

Oslo will host the first tour event, October 24-26. Inverness will be November 14-16, and Hamburg will go ahead January 16-18, 2009.

There will be two junior men's boys and two junior women's teams nominated from all countries involved in the tour and the plan is to have a total of twelve boy's and twelve girls' teams at each competition. Which countries will take part is still to be decided by the board of the tour. If selection is based on finishing position at the World Juniors, there is no guarantee that Scottish Junior Mens' teams will be represented.

Based on its big brother and sister, the men’s and women’s WCT-e events, teams will collect points at all of the events for each of the top eight rankings. There will be a page on the WCT-e website dedicated to the juniors, with tour information, event information, international points and ranking, and team information.

The prize for the top teams in the junior tour is entry to the main WCT-e events the following season.

The EJCT Chairman, under the Supervision of the WCT-e, will be Sune Frederiksen (Czech/Denmark). In his committee at the moment are Ole Ingvaldsen (Norway) and Rhona Martin (Scotland) with more to be added.

Armin Harder, the WCT-e director, hopes that further expansion and development of the EJCT will take place in future seasons.

Not everyone will be happy, as the consequence is that there will be one less event for Scotland's aspiring teams to compete in. The Highland Junior International was looked forward to by domestic teams each season. The event has a great record for attracting foreign teams, and they are always well looked after by the local organising committee. Rhona has proposed that if there are spaces in a tour event the host nation can fill up the spaces. That will go a little way to quelling the discontent.

On other junior matters, there had been fears that there would be no junior event at Greenacres this season, as plans for a European Seniors Invitation come to fruition. However, dates early in the season, September 19-21, have been set aside for a junior competition at the Renfrewshire rink.

Weekend preview 1: Berne Ladies

Kelly Wood (photo below), Claire Milne and Sarah Reid are the three Scottish teams in the draw for the Bernese Ladies Cup competition this weekend. The WCT-e event is a thirty-two team triple knockout. The first round draw is here.

Sheila Swan substitutes for Alison Black in the Reid team for this event.

Four Canadian teams will be in Switzerland for the Berne competition, and Kelly Scott, the world champs, will stay on in Europe for the Glynhill Ladies International at Braehead, January 18-20. So too will Moe Meguro's Japanese side who are already qualified for the World Championships in Vernon in March.

Incidentally, photos of all the teams taking part in the Glynhill Invitation at Braehead are now on the event website here.

Kelly Wood skipped her team to silver medals at the European Championships in Fussen. Photo by Bob.