China men won their first Pan Continental Curling Championship title and the gold medals on Saturday (2 November) when they beat opponents Japan 6-4 in Lacombe.
With the higher ranking from the round-robin stage of the event, China started the gold medal match with the last-stone advantage, according to World Curling.
They carried this through to the third end after blanking the first two.
In the third end, Japan’s fourth, Shimizu Testuro, made a perfect tap-up freeze, which was matched by the stone after, thrown by Chinese skip, Xu Xioming, promoting another one of his stones into the button to score two points.
Japan had an opportunity to score two points of their own in the fourth end, but their hit-and-roll attempt rolled too far and they took a single instead, continued the release.
Shimizu made another perfect freeze in the fifth end with his last stone, minimising the scoring options for China. Xu attempted a draw for his second counter, but slid too far and was forced to take one point, bringing the score to 3-1 after the first half.
Japan’s fourth player, Tetsuro Shimizu scored two points in the seventh end with a precise in-off hit to bring the score to 4-3.
Another open end in the eighth, reminiscent of the first two, had the teams trading hits and allowed China to nose hit the shot stone on their last to score a single point.
Japan was forced to take a single point in the ninth end, drawing against the guarded Chinese shot stone.
Going into the final end, China was 5-4 up with the last-stone advantage. A double clear of the guards from Fei Zueqing, third for China, opened up the end and gave his skip the open hit for a final score of 6-4 and the gold medal, a favour that was not lost on Xu.
After their win, the China skip said, “I feel that my young players played better and better, and made progress day-by-day. I’m very happy with their play.”
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