World’s best curlers to ‘invade’ the resort town in the Italian Dolomites
Canada attempts to add the World title to the 2010 Olympic gold
Eleven other teams ready to fight them to the last stone
Opening ceremony on Friday April 2nd at the Olympic Ice Stadium
Italy’s Cortina d’Ampezzo is ready for the top sporting event of the season. The 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship is about to take off next Friday at the Olympic Ice Stadium, on the same ice-rink that hosted the on-ice sports disciplines – namely ice-hockey and figure-skating – of the 1956 Olympic Winter Games.
The opening ceremony will be taking place at 5.30pm when all the curlers from 12 nations will be parading inside the stadium, accompanied by 12 Scottish bagpipes that will recall the ancient origins of this sport.
The 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship will be taking place in Italy for the first time in history, since 1959, when the first Curling World Men’s took place in Scotland. In Cortina the Canadians, skipped by Kevin Koe, will certainly be the team to beat after the Olympic gold medal won at home a month ago. However, all Koe’s rivals, namely Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, France, Germany, China, Japan, the US and the hosting Italy, will attempt to ruin the Canadian party.
The Italian team is the 2009 National Champion “Team Retornaz Trentino Curling” from Trento, skipped by the 26 year-old Joel Retornaz. Retornaz was Italy’s skip at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, and ended the tournament in seventh position overall, with four wins against Canada, Germany, United States and New Zealand. The other members of the Italian team at the 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship are Davide Zanotelli (second) Silvio Zanotelli (third), Julien Michele Genre (lead) and Giorgio Da Rin (alternate).
The Men’s World Championship will be played in six stages, namely the Round Robin games (starting Saturday April 3rd till Thursday April 8th), the Tie-break games (if required – on Friday April 9th), the ‘Page’ playoff games 1v2, 3v4 (on Friday evening and/or Saturday morning), the Semifinal game (between loser of 1v2 and winner of 3v4 – on Saturday April 10th at 4.30pm), and the two medal games on Sunday April 11th.
The Bronze medal game (between loser of semifinal and loser of 3v4) will take place at 10.00am. It will be followed by the Gold Medal game (between winner of 1v2 and winner of semifinal) at 4.00pm, and the closing ceremony immediately afterwards.
Along with the curling games on the ice-rink, several entertaining activities will take place outside the stadium, such as food and wine tasting and live music, so as tourists and fans will enjoy even more the world event.
The 2010 Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship OC, led by Massimo Antonelli, successfully organized the World Mixed Doubles Championship in 2009.
Info: www.wmcc2010.it