Canada to face Norway in the semi-finals of Olympic mixed doubles curling

John Morris (Wikimedia Commons)

Team Canada is in the semi-finals of mixed doubles curling at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang on Monday (Sunday in Canada at 5pm MT). The Canadian team of Kaitlyn Lawes of Winnipeg, Manitoba and John Morris of Canmore, Alberta, will face a Norwegian team that beat Canada in the round robin two days before the opening ceremonies last Thursday (Wednesday in Canada) by a score of 9-6.

Since then Lawes and Morris have done anything but lose. They have won their last six games and in the process, outscored their opponents 46-17. In their final round robin game, they had a convincing 7-3 win over South Korea’s Hye-ji Jang and Ki-Jeong Lee.

Norway’s Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten finished the round robin with a record of four wins and three losses. They then beat Rui Wang and Dexin Ba in an exciting tie-breaker by a score of 9-7 on Sunday. Norway got revenge on China after losing 9-3 to the Chinese to end round robin play. Norway’s other round robin losses came to the Olympic Athletes of Russia by a score of 4-3 and to the United States by a score of 10-3.

The other semi-final will have Switzerland’s Jenny Perret and Martin Rios (5-2) take on the Olympic Athletes of Russia team of Anastasia Bryzgalova and Alexander Krushelnitskiy (4-3). In the round robin, Switzerland beat OAR 9-8. Perret and Rios were down 8-6 heading into the eighth end and scored three times. The OAR did not need to play the tie-breaker because they beat Norway and China in the round robin. Switzerland plays the OAR at 4 am MT on Monday morning.

 

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