Canada’s Team Lott/Lott falls short to hosts at 2024 World Mixed Doubles Championship

OESTERSUND, Sweden — Team Canada will attempt on Wednesday to start another win streak at the 2024 World Mixed Doubles Championship.

The Gimli, Man., pairing of Kadriana Lott and Colton Lott split a pair of games on Tuesday at the Oestersund Arena, turning back Scotland’s Sophie Jackson and Duncan McFadzean (3-3) 12-5 in the morning draw and then suffering its first defeat, falling 6-5 to the home-country favourites Isabella Wrana and Rasmus Wrana.

The result left Canada, which like Sweden had broken from the gates with five straight victories, alone in second place in Group B with a 5-1 record behind the 6-0 Swedes. Becca Hamilton and Matt Hamilton of the U.S. are next at 4-2; Canada will play the U.S. in the round-robin finale for both games Thursday.

Against Sweden, it was simply a case of the Wrana siblings making every big shot to snuff out any kind of offence that Canada had building. Both teams played outstanding — Canada was scored at 89 per cent, which is a huge number in the mixed doubles discipline. But Sweden was even better at 94.

“There’s not much you can do; you just take it as it is and try to make something of it,” said Colton Lott, who along with his wife Kadriana saw their 21-game win streak going back to the Dynasty Manitoba Mixed Doubles Championship come to an end. “Today I think we were just on the wrong side of the inch and not getting our rocks in those precise spots to make those shots harder for them. We just kind of let them off the hook a few times early. We clawed back but just wasn’t good enough.”

Sweden took single points the first two ends, and then scored deuces in the fourth and sixth ends, sandwiched around a Canadian deuce in the fifth. In the seventh, Canada employed its power play but could only muster a single point, and Sweden’s victory was all but assured.

In the early game against the Scots, Team Canada, which plays out of the Winnipeg Beach Curling Club, gave up a stolen point in the first end, but righted the ship quickly with Kadriana Lott making a perfect draw to score three.

Scotland hung tough but in the seventh end, Canada used its power play perfectly and had an open house for Kadriana Lott to draw to to record a rare six-ender — the mixed doubles equivalent of an eight-ender.

Kadriana Lott continues to lead all female players in shooting percentage at 91.3 for the week — still nearly 10 points better than Switzerland’s Briar Schwaller-Huerlimann.

So even coming off a loss Tuesday night, there is still plenty to be positive about, said Kadriana Lott.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” she said. “I mean, the first five games were great. We had one tough one and then coming into this one we knew had to play well, and just they made every shot, so we can’t be down on ourselves about that one.

“We just want to finish off the round robin strong and get a last couple wins in here and I think that puts us in a good spot.”

Canada’s only game on Wednesday is at 8 a.m. Eastern against China’s Ying Yang and Jiafeng Tian (3-3).

The top three teams in each 10-team pool will make the playoffs, with the two pool winners getting a bye to the semifinals.

World Curling’s live-streaming platform The Curling Channel will be the only way to watch games from the World Mixed Doubles Championship, with all sheets being shown.

For Team Canada updates, go to www.curling.ca. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

For the latest scores, draw and list of teams, CLICK HERE.

The 2024 World Senior Men’s and Women’s Championships are also being played in Oestersund, with Canadian teams skipped by Susan Froud (Alliston, Ont.) and Paul Flemming (Halifax) looking to defend the gold medals won by Canadian teams in 2023. Canadian result stories from the 2024 World Seniors will be posted at www.curling.ca throughout the event.

The French version of this story will be posted as soon as possible at www.curling.ca/?lang=fr