Team Taiwania men’s won the first ever medal for Taiwan at the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships 2021

Pacific-Asia Curling Championships 2021

Team Taiwania was honored to represent Chinese Taipei (TPE) in the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships 2021 (PACC 2021) in Almaty, Kazakhstan, this past week. It was the 30th and the last version of this competition. Next year, it will become the Pan-Continental Curling Championships (PCCC).

Pacific-Asia Curling Championships 2021, Almaty, Kazakhstan. © WCF / Alina Pavlyuchik 2021

The PACC 2021 was the second international competition for our men’s team. At the beginning of the round robin games, we did not have a good start and lost to the host Kazakhstan 6-8. We defeated Hong Kong 9-6 in the next game. When facing Japan, which appeared to be the strongest team in the field, we made too many mistakes in the 3rd end, giving up 6 points, and lost to Japan 4-11. Our record improved to 3W-2L after defeating Saudi Arabia 13-5 and Qatar 11-4. Our final round robin game was against Korea and it was a very close game. We failed to seize the opportunity to score more points in the 10th end and finally lost to Korea 8:9.

After the round robin, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong, and we had the same record 3W-3L. However, since Hong Kong had the worst Draw Shot Challenge (DSC), they were eliminated from the play-offs and ended in the 5th place while we ranked 4th and Kazakhstan 3rd. So we played the rank 1 team, Japan, in the semi-final. Overall we performed better than in the round robin game against them, but we missed some key shots and lost the semi-final 3-8. That led us to face the host Kazakhstan in the bronze medal game.

Pacific-Asia Curling Championships 2021, Almaty, Kazakhstan. © WCF / Alina Pavlyuchik 2021

First ever medal for Chinese Taipei

In the bronze medal game, after Kazakhstan stole 1 point in the 1st end, both teams were able to utilized their hammers effectively and scored back and forth until we tied the game after the 10th end. In the extra end, Kazakhstan’s hammer did not curl enough to make the hit-and-roll. As a result, we stole 1 point, won the game 9-8, and claimed the bronze medal. This is the first ever medal for Team Chinese Taipei in international curling competitions.

The 3rd place in the PACC 2021 also meant that we qualified for the World Qualification Event 2022 (WQE 2022), which will be held in Lohja, Finland, in January 2022.

Pacific-Asia Curling Championships 2021, Almaty, Kazakhstan © WCF / Alina Pavlyuchik 2021. From right to left: skip Ting-Li Lin, third Nelson Wang, second Luis Yin, lead Kai-Wen Cheng, alternate Victor Lee.

Going Forward

After 3 months of intensive training at Chaska Curling Center, Minnesota, since August, we proved what we are capable of doing and brought home the bronze medal for Taiwan. Now we will take a short break and then figure out the plans for the WQE 2022.

Special thanks to our sponsors and supporters. Without you, we would never get this far.

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