human breaks the Swiss curling record…
Canada has won a battle of curling titans at the 2024 world women’s curling championship, setting a table for a repeat clash with rivals Switzerland.
Rachel Homan’s 8-5 victory over Swiss skip Silvana Tirinzoni was historic. The Canadian squad has lost only five curling games all season, went undefeated during their recent Tournament of Hearts run and are now 6-0 at the worlds in Sydney N.S.
It was also historic in that it ended a simply stunning Swiss run of world women’s game victories.
Prior to Tuesday night, Tirinzoni and fourth thrower Alina Pätz hadn’t lost a world match since May 4, 2021 when Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg beat them 8-3 in Calgary.
The duo went on to win that world title with a 14-1 won/loss record and have gone undefeated since—14-0 at Prince George, BC in 2022 and 14-0 last year at Sandviken, Sweden.
It was a run of 42 straight wins at the showpiece of women’s curling.
Just prior to Sydney, fourth thrower Paetz told the From The Hack podcast that her team’s win streak would probably come to an end in Cape Breton.
“I don’t expect us to win out at these worlds,” Pätz said. “We will lose a game at some point, we have to be prepared for that.”
The match was tight up to the seventh end when Homan’s troops cracked a huge four-ender for an 8-4 lead. After scoring only a single in the eighth, the Swiss conceded the game.
“You never play for something like that,” Tirinzoni said afterwards. “For me it’s almost unbelievable that we were able to win 42 games in a row at that level. It had to come to an end at some point, we knew that.
“They played so great I don’t think anybody would be able to beat them today. We tried everything but not today, so 42 it is.”
Tirinzoni and Paetz’s first two titles came with second Esther Neuenschwander and lead Melanie Barbezeat, who both retired from the sport after the 2022 win.
The third came last year with longtime fifth Carole Howald officially joining the lineup, along with former rival skip Briar Huerlimann. The latter was dropped in a surprise move after the team’s undefeated run in Sandviken, and Selina Witschonke is the latest recruit.
Homan’s previous match against the Swiss was a doozy. The final of the Grand Slam circuit’s Canadian Open took place back in January and in the seventh end Homan’s coach, Don Bartlett, made the rare move of calling a timeout and changing his team’s called shot.
The maneuver failed as Tirinzoni stole the end—but in a bizarre finish the Canadians ended up stealing the game victory in an extra end.
Canada’s victory over Switzerland marked the second big win of the day for the hosts, as Team Homan subdued Italy’s Stefania Constantini 8-7 earlier on Tuesday.
Canada leads the pack at 6-0 with Switzerland at 6-1 and both Italy and Korea (Eun-Ji Gim) at 5-1.
Danish veteran Madeleine Dupont is 5-2, while Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg has posted four straight wins after an ungainly 0-3 start.
USA’s Tabitha Peterson is currently 2-4 while Scotland’s Rebecca Morrison is struggling at 2-5.
The tournament round robin ends Friday night with the top two teams in the standings advancing directly to the semifinals.
Teams ranked third through sixth will compete in playoff qualification games (3 vs. 6; 4 vs. 5) with the winners advancing to the semifinals.
On championship Sunday, the semifinal winners will battle in the gold-medal game and the losers will play for bronze.