29.04.2012

At the World Mixed Doubles Championships 2012 at Erzurum, Turkey Claudia Toth and Christian Roth won the first ever WCF curling championship medal for Austria, winning the bronze medal game 12-7 against the USA pair Cristin and Brady Clark.

Switzerland won the gold medal game beating Sweden 7-6 in the final. For Martin Rios and teammate Nadine Lehmann it is the fourth championship title for Switzerland in the five year history of the event. Sweden’s Per Noreen and Camilla Johansson take silver.

The 2013 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship will be staged in the new Grant-Harvey Centre in Frederiction, New Brunswick, Canada from 13-20 April.

16.04.2012

41 year old Ulrich („Uli“) Kapp is not only one of the most successful German Curlers ever, but he is an overall Curling multi-talent. His first European Curling championship title was won together with his father Charlie Kapp. Together with his older brother Andy Kapp even more medals were won: 5 medals at World Curling Championships (2 x silver, 3 x  bronze), two more European Curling gold medals plus nine gold medals at German national level. Allgäu-born Kapp has also written a book about Curling ("Curling: History, Rules, Technique and Tactics"), is an experienced Curling commentator on Eurosport and Premiere and is also an active lawyer and advisor in the sports-marketing sector. 

Uli Kapp and his wife Monica as well as their two children live near Lake Chiem in Bavaria, Germany. 

Lilly Hummelt, widow of G. Hummelt

08.04.2012

Induction into the World Curling Hall of Fame is the highest ‘non-playing’ honour that the World Curling Federation can bestow on someone and recognises outstanding contribution to the sport of curling whether through on ice exploits or off ice endeavours.

2012 was the first year the WCF accepted nominations for this honour and Günther Hummelt was among the first inductees. The WCF honoured him with the following text:

Günther Hummelt (Austria) (1931-2010) was involved in almost every capacity of curling. Following a playing and coaching career, Günther established curling clubs in Germany and Austria, as well as helping to set up the Austrian Curling Association. Günther will be remembered for his time with the International Curling Federation, and latterly of the World Curling Federation. He was WCF President from 1990 until 2000 and led the WCF committee which lobbied to achieve Olympic medal status for curling.

Basel, Switzerland
April 6, 2012

Norway’s Bent Ånund Ramsfjell has been elected Vice President of the World Curling Federation. Ramsfjell, a 2002 Olympic Winter Games gold medallist, replaces Patrick Hürlimann who is stepping down from the position which he has held since 2010 due to work commitments.

Among the other elections and decisions made during the Annual General Assembly of the WCF, held during the World Men’s Curling Championship 2012 in Basel, Switzerland:

2012-2014 Executive Board:
President: Kate Caithness (Scotland)
Vice-President: Bent Ånund Ramsfjell (Norway)
Director of Finance: Andy Anderson (USA)

2012-2014 Members at Large:
Young C Kim (Korea)
Toyokazu Ogawa (Japan)
Leif Öhman (Sweden)
Graham Prouse (Canada)

• The Member Associations of the World Curling Federation were informed of first inductees to the newly created WCF Hall of Fame: Jean-Paul Bidaud, Elisabet Gustafson and Günther Hummelt (see Notes to Editors).

• Two Member Associations were suspended for non-payment of subscriptions: Armenia and Bulgaria.

• Members approved provisional membership for the Mongolian Curling Federation, which becomes the 49th Member of the World Curling Federation.

• A decision on provisional membership for the Kosovo Curling Association will be tabled at the next General Assembly.

• The next Assembly is scheduled to take place during the Inaugural World Curling Federation Congress which will be staged at the Turnberry Resort within sight of Ailsa Craig off the Ayrshire coast in Scotland from 16-20 October 2012. 

MIXED CHAMPIONSHIPS 2012 26.02.2012 The new Mixed Champion 2012 has been found: Team Kitzbühel Curling Club (KCC) 1 with Sebastian Wunderer, Karina Toth, Mathias Genner, Constanze Hummelt and Florian Huber wins the gold medal after defeating CfÖ 2 Markus Forejtek, Andrea Höfler, Felix Purzner and Tina Sauerstein. The bronze medal goes to team KCC 2 with Claudia Toth, Christian Roth, Marijke Reitsma and Nikolaus Gasteiger.

Above: The new Mixed Champions 2012. Below: The participants

05.02.2012

From Feb. 2-5, 2012 the National Austrian Curling Championships for Men and Women took place in Traun. At real low temperatures, the four best women's teams and the 8 best men's teams from Tyrol, Vienna and Upper Austria fought for the title of Austrian National Champion. 

In the women's section the team of CC Ottakring with skip Andrea Höfler won the title. The Viennese women won the very tough and tight final against the team of Kitzbühel and got the title for the very first time. The bronze medal was captured by team Verena Hagenbuchner from Traun. 

In the men's section the title went to Vienna, too! Team Unterberger (CFÖ) clearly won against CC Ottakring and, same as the women, brought the gold medal for the very first time to Vienna! Team Niederhauser, coming from CC Traun, secured the bronze.

The next year's championships will take place in St. Pölten.

	Team Austria - In 2012 one rank better than in the previous year. Congratulations!

January 8, 2012

Italian junior men and women secure world championship berths

There was double success for Italy at the European Junior Curling Challenge 2012 on Sunday, as both the Italian junior men and junior women won the finals and the coveted final European spots to be able to compete at this year’s World Junior Curling Championships in Östersund, Sweden.

Both the Italian teams completed the event on an unbeaten record. The Italian junior men’s team, skipped by Andrea Pilzer, won their final against Russia led by Evgeny Arkhipov 3-2. In the junior women’s final, Italy’s Federica Apollonio skipped her side to a 5-2 win against Danish hosts, skipped by Stephanie Nielsen.24 junior curling teams representing 15 nations competed at the event in Tårnby.

The final junior women’s standings are:

1. Italy (Qualification for World Juniors 2012)

2. Denmark

3. England

4. Estonia

5. Slovakia

6. Hungary

7. Spain

8. Poland

9. Germany

The final junior men’s standings are:

1. Italy (Qualification for World Juniors 2012)

2. Russia

3. Netherlands

4. Estonia

5. Germany

6. Denmark

7. Spain

8. England

9. Austria

10. France

11. Slovakia

12. Poland

13. Slovenia

14. Latvia

15. Hungary

The teams that have qualified for the World Junior Curling Championships 2012 are:

Junior Women: Scotland, Canada, Russia, Sweden, USA, Switzerland, Norway, Czech Republic and Italy

Junior Men: Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, Scotland, USA, Finland, Czech Republic and Italy.

The Pacific-Asia Junior Curling Championships take place from 28 January to 2 February in Jeonju, South Korea and will decide the two Pacific-Asia teams that will be heading to compete in Östersund and complete the field for the event. 

December 17, 2011

At the European Curling Championships (ECC) 2011 at Moscow, Russia, both Austrian teams have managed to achieve good results: Both teams finished 5^th in the B-group (i.e. rank 15 within Europe). Compared to 2010 especially the men made a huge step forward as they finished 4 ranks higher than in the previous year. Also, thanks to their good ECC results both teams could improve the Austrian rank on the WCF world ranking list by one spot!

The women’s final at the in Moscow Le Gruyere European Curling Championships was between unbeaten Sweden and a Scottish team that started the event poorly but kept improving as the week went on. The Scots came out on top, overwhelming Sweden to win by 8-2 in just eight ends.

The men’s final in Moscow was between defending champions Norway, led by Olympic silver medallist Thomas Ulsrud and the 2009 champions Sweden, skipped by Niklas Edin. In an exciting game Norway managed to win 7-6 and secured the European title for the second time in a row.

In the B-group the top two teams qualify for the A-group of the next year’s championships. The big winner in 2011 were the Hungarian teams as both the men and the women qualified for the A-group. In the men’s section they will be accompanied by team Russia, in the women’s group the Finnish ladies will join them.

October 10, 2011

For the first time ever Switzerland captured the European Mixed crown!
The team composed of Thomas Lips, Manuela Siegrist, Martin Rios and Manuela Netzer-Kormann beat Team Germany (Skip Alexander Baumann) quite clearly in the Saturday afternoon's final with 9-3. The second Mixed medal (this time bronze) for the Czech Republic (after a silver medal won at EMCC 2008 at Kitzbühel, AUT) was secured by team Chaloupek.

The Austrian Team with Claudia Toth, Andrea Höfler, Christian Roth and Florian Huber secured an excellent 5^th rank! Congratulations!!

December 11, 2010

AUSTRIAN LADIES TEAM WINS BRONZE MEDAL IN B-GROUP

After three years of falling at the last hurdle, Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud finally took European gold when he beat Denmark’s Rasmus Stjerne by 5-3 at the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships in Champery, Switzerland.

In the women’s section Sweden’s Stina Viktorsson beat Scotland’s Eve Muirhead by 8-6 in a high-class final to take gold and her first European crown.

Host nation Switzerland landed a bronze double when Mirjam Ott led their women’s team to a 9-5 win over Russia’s Ludmila Privivkova, and Christof Schwaller was a 7-4 winner over Germany’s Andy Kapp.

In the B Group, the results are as follows:

Men:
1. Italy (Gold). Qualification for ECC 2011 A Group
2. Latvia (Silver). Qualification for ECC 2011 A Group
3. Ireland (Bronze).

Women:
1.Czech Republic (Gold). Qualification ECC 2011 A Group and WWCC 2011 8^th place
2. Italy (Silver). Qualification for ECC 2011 A Group
3. Austria (Bronze)

The 2011 European Curling Championships will be held in Moscow, Russia from December 2-10, 2011.

October 1, 2010  

The best comes first: The final rank of Team Austria (Claudia Toth, Constanze Hummelt, Christian Roth und Florian Huber) at the European Curling Championships is a fantastic rank 6! Congratulations to our team!

Scotland has captured the European Mixed crown for the third time! The team around 30 year old skip David Edwards from Aberdeen was, together with England, one of two teams that were still undefeated after the round robin games. Both teams kept winning in the quarter-finals. In the semi-finals however, England was clearly defeated by Switzerland, while the Scottish squad with third Kerry Barr, second Dillan Perras and lead Louise Wood continued their triumphal procession right into the final of the European Mixed by eliminating Team Germany. Team Switzerland (skip Claudio Paetz), which made it to the EMCC final for the first time, shook hands after seven ends and so the final score was 6:2 in favour of Scotland. The bronze medal was won by Team Germany by winning 5:4 over England. Congratulations!

September 21, 2010

The European Mixed Curling Championship is already celebrating its sixth birthday! After Andorra, Claut, Madrid, Kitzbühel, and Prague, the European Mixed brings us this year to Greenacres, Scotland! This year, of course, the European Mixed has an exciting innovation: the incorporation of the European Curling Championships Group C.

Both events are taking place from September 21-28, 2010. Results can be viewed HERE

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AUSTRIAN MIXED DOUBLES CHAMPIONSHIP 2010 The Austrian Mixed-Doubles Championship took place in Kitzbühel from September 9-12, 2010. The four Viennese teams had to fight for the gold medal among themselves. Winner and Austrian Mixed Doubles Champion 2010 is the CFÖ-team Peichl/Peichl. hl. Runner-up and ranks 3 and 4 are: 2. CFÖ 2   Forejtek / Sauerstein 3. CFÖ 1   Schmitt / Schmitt 4. VCC 1   Marx / Szepesi In the above picture you can see ÖCV Sports Manager Andreas Unterberger with the medal winners. _______________________________________________________________________________

04. Juli 2010


The Austrian Curling Association mourns the passing on July 3, 2010 of Mr. Günther Hummelt, ex- and Honorary President of the World Curling Federation who died peacefully after short yet severe illness.

With Günther Hummelt we do not only lose a President, who has been in this office since the foundation of the Austrian Curling Association, but above all we lose an unforgettable person and a wonderful friend.

The in memoriam notice of the family please find HERE

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WORLD CURLING FEDERATION ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT Cortina d’Ampezzo April 7, 2010 The World Curling Federation has elected Kate Caithness from Scotland as president. Caithness, who has been serving as Vice-President since 2006, was elected to the post, gathering more votes than Les Harrison who was seeking re-election, at the annual general meeting of the Federation in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Kate Caithness becomes the first female president of the Olympic winter sport Federation of curling. She has been involved with curling since the early 1980s. From being President of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club Ladies Branch (1997-1998), she moved on to get involved with the World Curling Federation. Since 2000 she has been the driving force behind the World Curling Federation’s development of Wheelchair Curling and was instrumental in obtaining the admission of the sport into the Paralympic Winter Games programme in Turin in 2006. Switzerland’s Patrick Hürlimann was appointed Vice-President, taking the role that Caithness has vacated. Canadian, Les Harrison, steps down as president. Executive Board: President: Kate Caithness (Scotland) Vice-President: Patrick Hürlimann (Switzerland) Director of Finance: Andy Anderson (USA) Members at Large: Graham Prouse (Canada) Young C Kim (Korea) Leif Öhman (Sweden) Niels Larsen (Denmark) Among the other decisions made at the annual general meeting held during the Capital One World Men’s Curling Championship WCF Member Associations also voted to: - Not reduce the game from 10 ends to 8 ends - Maintain tiebreaker games to determine playoff teams - Keep extra ends - Reduce time outs to one 60 second coach interaction with the time clock running - Allow electric wheelchairs at WCF wheelchair curling events - Prohibit communications between the coach bench and anyone who is not sitting in that designated area. - Move the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship and World Senior Curling Championships from April to the month of November, starting from November 2012 These decisions will be reflected in the new WCF Rule Book which will be issued on the 1st of June 2010. In other business, Slovenia was accepted as the 46th member association of the World Curling Federation. A presentation of a silver salver was made to former European Curling Federation President Malcolm Richardson - winner of the 2010 Elmer Freytag Award. The next WCF General Assembly will take place on Thursday 9th December 2010 in Champery Switzerland.