Camera courtesy of Voth's Countrywide Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1

It's gold for Germany at the Ford World Women's Curling Championships in Swift Current.

The Andrea Schopp foursome captured the title with a thrilling 8-6, extra ends victory over Scotland in the gold medal match.

The Scots trailed by one coming home, but Scottish Skip Eve Muirhead made a spectacular double runback takeout to send it to an extra end.  Germany then scored one in the 11th end to seal the win.

Schopp wins only her second World championship, and first since 1988.  She says she doesn't want to wait another 20 years to be the World's best, adding that they can probably get another one soon.  However, many of  the other teams are so close together in skill, they could end up changing their line-ups every year in order to stay on top.

 

It's the 19-year-old Scottish Skip's first medal, and Muirhead says she's learned a lot from the experience this week, especially from playing in Canada, where the atmosphere is phenomenal and totally different from other countries.  She adds, they came here to get a medal, and although it wasn't the colour they looked for, it's still a medal.

 

It's a bittersweet bronze for Canada, who beat Sweden 9-6 in the earlier third-place game.

Jones curled better than her last two playoff losses, picking up a 4-ender in the sixth end, and although a few misses kept the Swedes within striking distance, the Canadians maintained their lead en route to bronze.

There were high expectations for the Canadian team, especially since they were playing on home ice, and they went 10-1 in the round robin.

 

Jones emotionally said post-game, "To be a four-time Canadian champion, to go to the World championship four times, to win [Grand Slam of Curling] Player's Championships, we've done more than I ever dreamed possible, and we've gone to two World's at home.  It's been an amazing ride, and to think everybody thinks you should win gold is ridiculous.  We came out here and we won bronze, and we're really happy about that."

 

Jones added, "We just wanted to come out and have fun, and enjoy the atmosphere.  Swift Current was amazing, and to have one more game in front of the crowd was great.  We're happy to get on the podium; third in the world is not so bad."

 

Jones also said the ice at the Credit Union iplex, made by technician Mark Shurek, was "the best World Championship ice we've ever played on, bar none."  She says it was just a little fast in the playoff games, and they didn't pick up on it, but it was normal speed for the bronze medal game.

 

There were great crowds all week, with more than 52,000 fans taking in the curling over the past nine days.  Saturday's semi-final between Canada and Scotland was the most attended game with 2735 fans.