Curling Betting: Canada rookies face Swedish champs in women's final

Curling / Mike Haggerty / 26 February 2010 / Leave a comment

Anette Norberg aims to win gold for Sweden

Canada beat the defending champions in their round robin match but can they repeat that trick in the final? Meanwhile, who will take bronze? Mike Haggerty selects the best bets.

“I like the ice, I like the rocks and now we’re just going to let her go”.

The women's curling final in Vancouver will be contested by two of the pre-event favourites - defending champions Sweden [2.6] and hosts Canada [1.55].

In this sport, the mighty Canada always start among the favourites, but their women's team, skipped by Cheryl Bernard, are complete rookies at international level, and this cast a shadow over their prospects. However they have sailed through the round-robin programme, losing only one game - to world champions China - and living up to the expectations of the fanatical Canadian crowds.

Canada beat Sweden's Anette Norberg by 6-2 in their round-robin match-up, but that result is not a good indicator of form as the Swedes have a reputation for moving up a gear once they reach the medal stages. That is precisely what they did in the semi-final, blowing away China by 9-4.

By contrast, Canada had to battle against Switzerland to win their semi-final by 6-5, depending on two crucial mistakes from Swiss skip Mirjam Ott in the eighth and tenth ends to seal their win.

Switzerland and China will now play for bronze medals on Friday morning, ahead of the women's gold medal game.

While Norberg should make history on Friday by becoming the only curling skip to retain an Olympic title in the history of the game, the battle for bronze is difficult to call as, apart from their semi-final loss, Switzerland have been improving all the way through the competition and they met China in their third game. Speaking about her potential history-making second gold, Sweden's Norberg said: "Of course nothing can compare with winning a first gold but to win another gold would be amazing".

When Britain's men's world champions crashed out in a sudden-death tie-breaker against Sweden, the Canadian men became even greater favourites for gold.
It took Sweden an extra end to beat Britain, but their semi-final against Canada was never really a contest as the Swedish challenge was swept aside for a comfortable 9-5 Canadian win.

Norway overcame Switzerland in the other semi-final, by 7-5, but they will have to pull out a brilliant performance in Saturday's final if the Canadian juggernaut is to be halted. Looking forward to the final Canadian skip Kevin Martin said: "I like the ice, I like the rocks and now we're just going to let her go".

Sweden and Switzerland will play for bronze before that.

Tags: Curling betting, Mike Haggerty, Vancouver 2010 betting, Winter Olympics betting