New Zealand Curling

24 May 2014 – The May World Curling Federation newsletter from President Kate Caithness covers World Curling's news, tournament, progress and updates from the last few months.

The newsletter also features New Zealand's recent WCF Olympic Celebration Tour featuring Cheryl Bernard and Terry Meek, and a round-up of post-Olympic activities from other countries.

Waverley Taylor and Kenny Thomson

2 May 2014 – New Zealand curlers found wins hard to come by at the recent 2014 World Mixed Doubles and World Senior Championships in Dumfries, Scotland.

The Mixed Doubles side of Kenny Thomson and Waverley Taylor won two of their seven pool games to finish 6th in their pool and 21st of the record 34 nations competing.

They were not helped by Waverley Taylor having to play the full tournament with a heavily strapped ankle after she badly sprained it while travelling to Scotland.

29 Mar 2014 – Experienced triumphed at the MCI Open Doubles, the opening event of the 2014 New Zealand curling season last weekend. Peter and Wendy Becker went through their pool undefeated, and then won a tight final 6-5 against Peter de Boer and Jessica Smith.

Speaking the day after their win Peter said, "Yes, we had a pretty good run and a bit of luck. But most of the talk this morning has been the aches and pains and tiredness!"

For the Beckers this was an ideal warm-up for their respective World Senior Championships in April, where Peter will skip the NZ Men's side while Wendy will play with the Women's team. And it adds to a full mantelpiece, after Peter's team for Scotland won not only the 2013 NZ Senior Men's title but the Open championship as well.

16 Mar 2014 – Auckland, Dunedin and Maniototo Curling ran a series of well-attended clinics in early March, hosted by 2010 Canadian skip Cheryl Bernard and her husband Terry Meek. Cheryl and her team won Olympic silver in Vancouver four years ago, while Terry is a leading coach and 2009 World Men's gold medallist.

The various sessions for club and media, public and schools were a part of the World Curling Federation's Olympic Celebration Tour. Very enthusiastic current and potential curlers attended, the latter enjoying a wonderful introduction to our sport.

Auckland Curling's Facebook page has plenty of pictures from the three sessions there.

1 Feb 2014 – New Zealand has no curling team competing in Sochi.

Countries qualify for the Olympics directly or indirectly via the Men's and Women's World Championships. The NZ Men's fifth place at the 2012 World Championships earned them 8 points but they did not qualify for the 2013 event, so finished ninth overall in the Olympic qualification table. The top seven secured an automatic place in the Sochi line-up with hosts Russia. The remaining places went to the top two teams at December's last-chance Olympic Qualifying Event where the Kiwis finished fifth.

The New Zealand Men's team have competed at one Winter Olympics, in Turin in 2006.

No NZ Women's side has qualified for a World Championship, so they have never had the opportunity to earn Olympic qualifying points.

• 2014 Winter Olympic Curling website has comprehensive coverage

Photo © WCF / Richard Gray

16 Dec 2013 – Olympic dreams for New Zealand Curling teams will have to go on hold for another four years.

The national Men's side have come up short in their attempt at the last qualifying tournament in Fussen, Germany, to secure a place at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Needing to win their last two round robin matches overnight and hope for a favourable result elsewhere, they obtained their first objective with a strong 8-4 win over France.

The Kiwis scored 3 in the fifth end to take a 5-3 lead at the break, and another score of 3 in the ninth end sealed the result.

New Zealand then came up against joint leaders the Czech Republic in their last round robin game.

Photo © Chinese Curling Assn

20 Nov 2013 – The podium proved to be just out of reach for New Zealand's curlers at the 2013 Pacific-Asia Championships in Shanghai. Both the Men's and Women's sides reached the Bronze medal match, but were beaten by Korea and Japan respectively.

Despite the disappointing finish for the Kiwi sides, both skips took some positives from the tournament.

Team Japan

Sunday 24 August 2013 – Japan and Australia took home the gold medals from the Audi quattro Winter Games NZ curling tournament late yesterday.

Japan won the Men’s gold medal match 10-3 from New Zealand, who took silver. Korea picked up the bronze medal as the losing semi-finalist.


A final stone hit from Australia secured the Mixed Doubles gold medal 7-6 from New Zealand “A”, and China cleared out from New Zealand 10-4 to win the bronze.

7 Aug 2013 – 2012 NZ Mixed Doubles Curling champions Natalie Thurlow and Hans Frauenlob had to battle all the way before before emerging from last weekend's 2013 Championship with back-to-back titles.

The pair lost two of their five pool games to tie for second with last year's bronze medalists Kelsi Heath and Kieran Ford, but Thurlow and Frauenlob qualified for the semi-finals by virtue of their first round win over Heath and Ford. The new pairing of Kenny Thomson from the New Zealand Men's side and 19-year-old Aucklander Waverley Taylor topped the pool with a perfect five from five.