World Junior Curling Championships to begin in Lohja, Finland

Lohja, Finland – The World Junior Curling Championships 2024 will be held in Lohja, Finland, from 17 to 24 February. This will be the 49th edition of the championship on the men’s side and the 36th edition for the women. Ten men’s and ten women’s teams representing their national Member Associations will compete.

Men’s competition

The men’s field consists of: Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, Switzerland and United States.

The reigning champions, China, bring a new team to the world stage, skipped Tao Liqiu Nan.

Germany, skipped by Benjamin Kapp, won silver at the last two editions of the event. This year, they aim to climb one step higher on the podium.

Scotland took bronze last year and with one change in their line-up, they target the podium in Lohja as well. Two of their team members, Logan Carson and Archie Hyslop, took gold medals in the mixed competition at the recently concluded Youth Olympic Games in Gangwon, Korea.

Another Youth Olympic champion will also compete in the men’s competition in the Kisakallio Sports Institute. Norway’s skip Lukas Hoestmaelingen won Youth Olympic gold in the mixed team event in Lausanne in 2020.

Denmark’s Jacob Schmidt and Nikki Jensen participated in this year’s Youth Olympics in Korea as well. Both took silver in the mixed team event, whereas Schmidt added another silver to his collection in the mixed doubles competition.

Canada, United States, Denmark and New Zealand secured their places at the world championship by reaching the semi-finals at the World Junior-B Championships in December 2023.

Women’s competition

The participating teams in the women’s field are: Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and Türkiye.

Scotland women are the reigning world champions. Four of their team members were in their line-up last year as well. Their skip, Robyn Munro is a World Mixed Championship silver medallist from 2022.

Japan took silver last year and were crowned world champions in 2022. Two of their team members — Ueno Yui and Miura Yuina — were members of both former podium-finisher teams.

All four members of Norway’s team were part of last year’s bronze medal-winning squad. Their third player Nora Oestgaard and second thrower Ingeborg Forbregd are Youth Olympic champions from 2020 in the mixed team competition.

China, Canada, Germany and Türkiye women have all secured their spot at this event by reaching the semi-finals at the World Junior-B Curling Championships 2023 last December.

Schedule

Round-robin play starts on Saturday 17 February and continues until Thursday 22 February. The top four teams in the round-robin rankings qualify for the semi-finals in both genders.

All semi-finals will take place on Friday 23 February. The women’s semi-final games will start at 14:00 and are followed by the men’s semi-finals at 19:00.

In both genders one semi-final will be played between the first-ranked and the fourth-ranked teams, while the other semi-final will feature the second- and third-ranked teams.

The winners of the semi-finals will play for gold medals and the world title, the losers will play for bronze.

The women’s medal games will take place on Saturday 24 February at 10:00. The men will play for the medals at 15:00 on the same day.

World Curling TV will be streaming all games. Information about the streaming will be available soon.

Click here for the playing schedule.

All times are EET (Eastern European Time) which is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) +2 hours.