The competition gets underway on February 19 with ten mixed national teams set to compete, including reigning world and Paralympic champions Canada, who will be looking to defend the title they won in Prague last year under the leadership of their highly-rated skip Jim Armstrong.

Scotland's Aileen Neilson, the only female skip in the field, will be hoping that her team can go one better than the silver medal they took at the World Championships last year after losing to Canada in final.

Meanwhile, Norway's Rune Lorentsen, whose team won bronze in 2011 return along with the fourth placed finishers from last year Russian, who are skipped by Andrey Smirnov.

The other six teams competing are China, Korea, USA, Sweden, Italy and Slovakia, with the tournament also giving players the chance to compete in the country where the 2018 Winter Paralympic Games will be staged, with nearby Pyeongchang hosting the event in six years time.

The ten teams will compete in a round robin before going straight through to the bronze and gold medal games which are schedule for February 25.


Wheelchair curling is similar in many ways to its able-bodied parent game, except that no sweeping takes place and each game consists of eight instead of ten ends.

It first appeared at the Turin 2006 Winter Paralympic Games where Canada, skipped by Chris Daw, won the gold medal by beating Britain, skipped by Frank Duffy, 7-4 in the final.

Meanwhile, the first World Wheelchair Curling Championships were held in Sursee in 2002 when the event was won by the host nation as Switzerland beat Canada 7 - 6 in a thrilling final.

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