Curling Medal Rounds Start Today

While it has been overshadowed by the hockey tournament, curling nevertheless has two 25 point gold medals at stake. Our first place team, Cornballers, made both the men's and women's medal rounds with Team Sweden and hopes to add to their Fantasy Olympic lead. #3 Da Nang Dynamos are also alive in both rounds and need a couple of big wins by Switzerland to move up.

9 AM & 2 PM PST - CurlingOn the women's side the top four teams in the world all moved on to the semifinals. The first semifinal at 9 a.m. local time matches China (Brian Schwartz/Nordique Combined), 6-3 in the Games and ranked fourth in the world, with world #2 Sweden (Ellis Kunka/Cornballers), 7-2 in the Games. China lost 6-4 in their first match with Sweden, but has a higher composit score because of Sweden's 10-1 blowout loss to Russia. While Sweden is a traditional power, China has only recently become a major world team but is technically sound. China was the silver medal favorite going in and is a slight favorite in the semifinal.

The other semifinal on paper is more of a mismatch. World #1 Canada (Adam Claus/Ice Lugers) went 8-1 with their only loss to China, while world #3 Switzerland (John Binz/Da Nang Dynamos) went 6-3 including a 5-4 loss to Canada. Anything less than gold would be a major disappointment for the home team, and they should get past Switzerland again. Especially considering they have the hot chick who's mad all the time.
The men's finals start at 2 p.m. with world #1 Canada taking on world #8 Sweden. Canada went 9-0 in the round robin including an easy 7-3 win over Sweden. Sweden went 5-4 but got a huge upset of world #2 Great Britain to move on to the medal rounds. Canada is obviously a heavy favorite and has clearly been the best team so far with six easy wins among their nine matches.

In the other semifinal, world #3 Norway (Brittany B./Buck-Toothed Rabbit Bitches) plays world #5 Switzerland. Norway (7-2) won the teams' first matchup 7-4 but Switzerland (6-3) played well including a 7-3 win over Sweden a couple of days ago. Norway is a slight favorite.