Spallumcheen’s Ina Forrest left the 2020 World Wheelchair Curling Championship with a silver medal after Team Canada was defeated by Russia in the gold medal match Saturday, March 7.
The team had a single-point lead and the hammer in the seventh of eight ends, but the Russians scored when it mattered most, taking a point in each of the last two ends to secure a 5-4 victory and the gold medal.
Forrest, the team’s vice-skip, was joined by skip and lead thrower Mark Ideson, fourth Jon Thurston and second Dennis Thiessen on the podium in Wetzikon, Switzerland.
Ideson was content with the silver-medal result after Canada stormed through the competition from the World Wheelchair B Division.
“Of course, we’re happy with the silver medal. We set out at the beginning of the week to make the playoffs and we hoped to get on the podium and we did that,” he told the World Curling Federation after the game.
The opening end saw Thurston execute a sublime double takeout to score two points for Team Canada. The team carried the early lead all the way to the seventh end, when Thurston had a chance to take out the lone Russian stone for two points, but the fourth missed to give Russia a steal of one point.
Canada’s semifinal on Friday against Sweden resulted in a 3-2 victory. In a reversal of what Russia did to Canada in the final, Forrest’s team stole a point in the second-to-last end to set up the win.
Meanwhile Russia surprised China, the defending champions, in the semifinals on their way to 2020 glory.
Forrest’s team finished third out of 12 in the preliminary rounds with a 7-4 record and defeated Korea 5-4 in qualification round action.
Remarkably, Team Canada finished the tournament with 13 stolen ends for and 22 against and were a +3 in points scored. Their semifinal Swedish opponents finished +28 with 22 stolen points for and eight against.
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