Happy New Year from Prague (continued)

In the last blog I began talking about the girls competition - and just to remind you and to continue the story - here is what I said before:

GIRLS - There are 12 teams entered in the EJCC, a rise of 3 since last year and only the second time that the numbers have been above 10 since 2005 and 2 sections have been required. The teams playing are from Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey. Italy won last year with an undefeated 9-0 record but came straight back down in Ostersund last year. Only one team was relegated as Russia, as hosts, are already in the WJCC, having finished 3rd last year.

Germany and Poland have been ever present in the EJCC since 2005 although Germany has qualified twice from it but been relegated straight back down again. Of the teams that have previously qualified from the EJCC only Italy and Germany are here this week and, as with the boys, they are both in the same section.

There is one game left in the girls draw - at 1830 UK time tonight. In Section WA Italy suffered their first defeat at the hands of unbeaten Germany and are finished their round robin games on a 4-1 record. Germany are undefeated on 4-0 and tonight face Estonia who are on 3-1 and so must win to stay in the competition. It would appear to be a Germany, Italy one-two in this section but should Estonia pull off the shock win then it would go down to the DSC results to decide ranking.

Italy have finished with a DSC of 39.5 which is currently better than either Germany (83.1)or Estonia (50.1), though both could still improve. The Germans will not be able to better either of the other 2 even if they draw the button and so would inevitably be in the tie break for second position if they lose - so it looks like a must win for Germany to save themselves the worry of a tie-breaker.

In Section WB, England had a great chance to seal top slot this morning when skip, Hetty Garnier played another superb draw to the edge of the button which gave her an average that neither Denmark or Hungary, who were tied with England could beat. However a poor performance by the English girls saw them lose to Turkey who joined them on 3-2.

Tonight Denmark and Hungary who are both on 3-1 play Poland and Latvia respectively and if they both win then they will be 1st and 2nd respectively. Even if Hungary lose they will be ranked second because they beat both Turkey and England, and so a defeat for Denmark is what England and Turkey must hope for. And having written that I am now not sure if that would be the case or would Hungary have to play whichever of the other two has the better DSC (and that would be England). We shall know at 9.30 tonight when all the games are finished.

My predictions are for Denmark and Hungary to both win and finish 1st and 2nd,  and the semi-finals to be Germany v Hungary and Italy v Denmark.

BOYS UPDATE

Meanwhile back with the boys and the games that are ongoing at the moment - the Austria-Estonia game on which much depends - see last post -  is finely balanced at 3-2 to Austria after 5 ends while in the other crucial game in the other section Italy lead Turkey 4-3 after 6 ends. If Italy win they would be tied for second place with Turkey after the round robin but would be ranked second as they will have won their round-robin game. I am unclear however if this means that there will be a tie-breaker or not.

More later.