First women's tiebreaker at Perth

Gail Munro got past the first hurdle in getting to this year's Columba Cream Ladies Curling Championship playoffs when she and her team of Lyndsay Wilson, Sharon Stewart and Kerry Adams beat Mairi Milne, Claire Milne, Lynn Cameron and Katie Loudon in the first tiebreaker at Perth this afternoon. The Munro side now meet Claire Hamilton's team later this evening.

It was a tight game, with Munro going into the last end one behind with last stone advantage. Mairi played her last and corner froze it to a Munro counter at the back of the tee. Gail was on target with her last to push the Milne shot away and count four, more than she needed for the win.

Find all the results, linescores and links to the stats, here.

Top: Kerry Adams and Sharon Stewart bring Lyndsay Wilson's stone into the house as Gail checks if it's level with the other Munro stone in the house.

Mairi Milne and Gail Munro

Defending champion Gail Munro

Gold for GB girls at EYOF

Anna Sloan, Hannah Fleming, Lauren Gray, Alice Spence and Becca Kesley (alternate) beat Kershin Iten's Switzerland in the final of the European Youth Olympic Festival in Poland this afternoon. The GB team were four up playing the tenth.

Colin Dick, Blair Fraser, Jay McWilliam, Kerr Drummond and Struan Wood (alternate) won the silver medals, losing at the last end to Roger Gulka's Swiss side. Dick and his team went into the last end one up, without last stone, and saw the Swiss draw for a two.

Very well done to both GB sides!

Murdoch tops the standings

Lee McCleary had the beating of the Murdoch team at the Bruadar Scottish Championship Finals today, but his attempted double with last stone was well off target. McCleary was one down without at the last, and could have elected to draw for a single for the extra. When the big shot to win the game did not come off, Murdoch was alone at the top of the standings.

Warwick Smith's side beat Hammy McMillan at the last stone of their game, to keep themselves in contention on five wins, the same count now as Glen Muirhead's team. Tom Brewster's team could have been sharing top spot with Murdoch, but his last draw in the extra end of his game against Pete Loudon was just long, and he stays on six wins. That victory brought the Loudon team to five wins too.

So, the ninth games in the round robin will see Loudon v McCleary, and Muirhead v Warwick Smith, the results decisive in determining who will be in the last four. McMillan (on four wins) plays Colin Hamilton.

See all the results, stats and linescores here.

Top: David Murdoch. Above: Team Murdoch work out what to do against McCleary.

Lee McCleary

Pics by Bob.

Newsflash from Poland

Both GB teams have reached the finals of the EYOF curling, and will contest the gold against the Swiss this afternoon!

Follow the linescores here.

More men on Thursday

Christine was on blog duty tonight for the seventh round of the Bruadar Scottish Men's Curling Championship. She writes, "David Murdoch met Warwick Smith in round seven, and this turned into quite a surprising game. Before it started the teams on paper were evenly matched. But ice is different, and so it proved in this one! With last stone Murdoch took two in the first and dominated the game from there, Smith was forced to take one in the second, Murdoch got another two in the third. And that set the pattern for the game, the Murdoch four were the strongest team making all the shots. It was over in just five ends, Murdoch lay three, Smith failed with his last stone, he conceded.

Peter Loudon against Alan Smith was over in eight ends. A steal of three in the fifth gave Loudon a lead of three shots, he held on to that, killing the game with three in the eighth for a final score of 7-2.

Hammy McMillan got another win on his card against Iain Watt, 6-4.

And Tom Brewster had a tight game all the way against Glen Muirhead. Neither team could get the advantage, and they went in to final end tied at four all. Muirhead didn't bury his last stone draw. Brewster had a hit, he didn't need to stick, he got one shot for the game 5-4.

Tom Brewster and David Murdoch are now both on 6 wins, Warwick Smith, Glen Muirhead, Peter Loudon and Hammy McMillan all on 4 wins. Two more rounds to play. Find all the linescores and stats here."

Then there were five

Eight women's teams started out in the Columba Cream Scottish Curling Championship last year at Curl Aberdeen, and after the double round robin, five are still in contention for the 2009 title. The teams skipped by Kelly Wood and Eve Muirhead finished tied for top spot with 11 wins, and three teams, skipped by Gail Munro, Claire Hamilton and Mairi Milne were equal on seven wins. Wood and Muirhead will play the 1-2 Page game, the loser of that will play who ever comes forward from the tiebreakers tomorrow. These are set up as Munro v Milne at 2pm, the winner to play Claire Hamilton at 8.30pm. See the RCCC website here.

Here are all the surviving skips!

Eve Muirhead (above) and her team of Karen Addison, Rachael Simms and Anne Laird beat the Gail Munro side in the last round robin game.

Kelly Wood (above), Jackie Lockhart, Lorna Vevers and Lindsay Wood beat Claire Hamilton in their last game.

Gail Munro, Lyndsay Wilson, Sharon Stewart and Kerry Adams are still battling away.

Claire Hamilton (above) had to recruit Claire MacDonald as third for this week, as Lauren Gray is off winning medals in Poland with the GB girls' team. But with Rhiann Macleod and Caitlin Barr as the front end they have done really well to be in the mix for tomorrow's tiebreakers.
After a slow start, Mairi Milne and her team of Claire Milne, Lynn Cameron and Katie Loudon, recovered from being the Curling Today Team of the Day (here) and won their place in the playoffs by beating Gillian Howard today.

Elsewhere in the curling world

The GB teams at the World University Games have had their first games in Harbin. Sarah Reid's team lost to the Chinese favourites in their first game but beat Korea in their second match.

John Hamilton's team beat the USA in an extra end in their first round match.

Finding results is just a little problematic. This link takes you to the English home page. From there, click schedules and results on the left, and on the next page scroll down until you find 'curling', at the bottom. Click on that - and you are presented with another page that has little on it, except one link 'curling'. If you haven't lost the will to live by this time, click on that link and you will be presented with a page where you can download, as pdf files, all the draws!

It's rather easier to find the results from the EYOF in Poland thanks to curlinglive.com. Norway beat the Czech Republic for third place in the men's event, and now play Colin Dick's team in the semifinal. The GB women, skipped by Anna Sloan, missed out on a place in the final (with the guarantee of at least a silver medal) by less than a cm as the Draw Shot Distance was used to decide the rankings after three teams finished tied for first place in the rankings on 4 wins. The Swiss are through to the final. The GB team has to play Denmark, who beat them when they met this morning, in the semifinal.

The semifinal games are tomorrow.

And last but not least, the World Curling Tour Europe has relaunched itself as the Curling Champions Tour, see here.

This is a fascinating development, and more about it here in due course.