CURLING: World Mixed Doubles Championship 2012 Day 7 FINAL

Switzerland won the gold medal game at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2012 in Erzurum, Turkey, beating Sweden 7-6.

For Martin Rios and teammate Nadine Lehmann it is the fourth championship title for Switzerland in the five year history of the event. Sweden’s Per Noreen and Camilla Johansson take silver.

Claudia Toth and Christian Roth won the first ever WCF curling championship medal for Austria, winning the bronze medal game 12-7 against the USA pair Cristin and Brady Clark.

Both Switzerland and Sweden were cautious to begin with during the gold medal game. The teams traded single points in the first two ends before Sweden scored the first deuce in the third end while the Swiss scored one in the fourth. Sweden’s Per Noreen and Camilla Johansson were also the stronger team after the break, scoring two points the fifth end.

But Switzerland came back in the sixth after scoring three. Martin Rios played a beautiful triple-takeout before Nadine Lehmann could draw the open house to tie up the game 5-5.

In the seventh end, Sweden made an interesting call of giving away one point, to keep hammer/last stone advantage in the eighth. Unfortunately for Sweden, Per Noreen's draw came up heavy and let Switzerland steal two.

Nadine Lehmann may have been feeling the pressure with her last stone in the eighth end, coming up heavy on a draw, leaving Sweden an easy takeout for two points. Even though he was left an easy shot for the extra end, Per Noreen decided to go for glory and make a very thin double for a score of three. The last stone of the game would curl a fraction too much and leave Sweden with only one point and Switzerland won 7-6.

Switzerland’s Martin Rios: "I told her [teammate Nadine] that we were down four in the semifinal and we were in the same situation and I told her ‘we can do it’. We were lucky in the seventh and eighth end. For the last one [shot], I think it was a pretty hard shot to do."

Sweden’s Per Noreen: "I think we have been a little nervous and we both played a little bad with some misses on the last stone. I think we do a great match are we are happy for second place."

Camilla Johansson: "In the first half we played well and then we started to miss a few very important stones."

In the Bronze medal game both teams were wearing the disappointment of having lost their semifinals earlier in the afternoon. Austria had lost 13-3 to Sweden and USA had lost 9-7 in a close game against Switzerland.

USA’s Cristin and Brady Clark were 5-4 up by the fourth end break with Brady throwing away hit last shot in the fourth end and taking a single point as there was no shot to make. But Austria began to stretch out their lead in the fifth end when Claudia Toth did a tap up for four. The US duo came back, taking two points in the sixth end but missed shots left the Austrians with a chance for four and they sealed their win 12-7 in the seventh end.

Claudia Toth: "It’s a really great feeling to win a medal. Austria’s never won a medal, neither at Europeans or Worlds. We thought we could make it but we just tried our best and we’re still getting our head around that it actually happened."

Christian Roth: "If you look back to the tournament our start wasn’t really good. But from game to game we got better and we had a really amazing game this morning against Scotland to make the top four. Sweden played really well in the semifinal we didn’t really have a chance to win."

Cristin Clark: "Well it’s better than last year, I guess we were seventh last year and now we’re fourth."

Brady Clark: "We will continue improving and learn some lessons from this year and hopefully win the US Nationals another time and come back to improve our rankings. We had opportunities. We wish we could have medalled. But it is what it is. It was a great championship and congratulations to the Swiss."

The 2013 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship will be staged in the new Grant-Harvey Centre in Frederiction, New Brunswick, Canada from 13-20 April.

Complete standings at the end of the event are available on the event website: http://www.wmdcc2012.curlingevents.com

All results are mirrored on the WCF Historical Results Database: http://results.worldcurling.org/

View news, line scores, image galleries, video highlights and full games on the event website: http://www.wmdcc2012.curlingevents.com

All video is also available on the WCF YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/WorldCurlingTV

As a service to our readers, Around the Rings will provide verbatim texts of selected press releases issued by Olympic-related organizations, federations, businesses and sponsors.

These press releases appear as sent to Around the Rings and are not edited for spelling, grammar or punctuation.

20 Years at #1: