Canada’s Homan beats Japan at women’s curling worlds for 23rd straight victory

The Canadian team has embraced the grind of an unforgiving schedule at the world women’s curling championship. The wins keep on coming no matter when the Ottawa-based foursome is playing.

Rachel Homan skipped the host side to a 7-2 victory over Japan’s Miyu Ueno on Wednesday morning to remain unbeaten at 7-0.

It was a quick turnaround after a victory over Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni a night earlier. That result, which came after an extra-end win over Italy’s Stefania Constantini earlier in the day, ended a 42-game win streak at this event for the four-time defending champion.

“It was a big day, probably too much caffeine,” Homan said. “It was a ton of fun.”

Returning to Centre 200 to face a young Japanese side skipped by the 2022 world junior champion, the Canadian team of Homan, Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes took a few ends to adjust to the straighter ice on their sheet.

A defensive battle ensued with Canada breaking things open with three points in the eighth end. Miskew helped set things up by leaving two stones under partial cover to pressure the Japanese side.

Ueno tried a cross-house double but left her stone exposed. Homan made the hit and the teams shook hands after the Canadians stole a point in the ninth end.

The Canadians were scheduled to put their 23-game winning streak on the line in the evening against Turkey’s Dilsat Yildiz.

In other early games, Constantini edged South Korea’s Eunji Gim 10-9, Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg doubled American Tabitha Peterson 10-5 and Norway’s Marianne Roervik topped New Zealand’s Jessica Smith 11-4.

Constantini joined defending champion Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland in second place at 6-1. South Korea fell into a fourth-place tie with Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont at 5-2.

Sweden was alone in sixth place at 5-3. The top six teams at the end of round-robin play Friday will advance to the playoffs.

Unforgiving schedule

The Canada-Turkey game will cap the second of three straight days where Homan’s side will play in the morning and at night. A long-awaited sleep-in comes Friday but will be followed by back-to-back games that afternoon and evening.

Playoff teams that don’t crack the top two could face another two-game day Saturday ahead of the medal games on Sunday. The possibility of a taxing 15-game schedule over a nine-day stretch is a possibility.

“It’s not the easiest, it is a little bit fatiguing,” Miskew said. “It’s also fatiguing to play back-to-back games. When there’s 13 teams at an event of this length, there’s going to be either back-to-back or night-morning. We just happen to have night-morning three times, which is more than we’re used to.

The competition started less than three weeks after the team ran the table at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, an 18-team event that’s one day longer but has an eight-game round-robin with its two-pool format.

“They usually balance it out so that if you play at night, you don’t play the next morning,” Miskew said of the nationals. “There’s not a lot of back-to-backs. But here it’s just a mix of everything.

“It’s just something that we’re not typically used to. But we’re thrown into it and getting used to it as we go.”

Seeking Canada’s 1st title in 6 years

At the world championship, each team plays a full 12-game round-robin schedule.

“I try not to think about the length of the week too much, the number of games, because then it can feel overwhelming,” Wilkes said. “So [we’re] just focusing on what’s important right now and what we can do to get ready for our next game.”

Entering the Wednesday afternoon draw, Norway was just under the playoff cutline at 3-4. The U.S., Japan and Scotland’s Rebecca Morrison were next at 2-5.

Canada’s last women’s world title came in 2018 when Jennifer Jones was victorious in North Bay, Ont. Homan won gold in her last world championship appearance in 2017 at Beijing.

Muyres, Walker rolling at mixed doubles nationals

Meanwhile, Kirk Muyres and Laura Walker held on for an 8-7 win over Andrea Kelly and Tyler Tardi to remain unbeaten at the Canadian mixed curling championship in Fredericton.

Muyres and Walker improved to 6-0 in Pool A while Kelly and Tardi fell to 4-2.

Muyres and Walker scored five in the fifth end for a 7-3 advantage. But Kelly and Tardi made it close with two in the sixth and eighth, respectively.

In other action, Nancy Martin/Steve Laycock defeated Marlee Power/Luke Saunders 7-6, Laurie St-Georges/Felix Asselin edged Madison and Rylan Kleiter 5-4, Chaelyn Kitz/Brayden Stewart dispatched Audrey Laplante/Jasmin Gibeau 9-4 while Jim and Jaelyn Cotter got past Aaron and Amanda Sluchinski 7-3.

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