Swedes claim Paralympic curling bronze
The Swedish curling team has claimed the bronze at the Paralympics overcoming the USA 7-5 in Vancouver on Saturday. The host nation, Canada won the gold after beating the Koreans 8-7.
Sweden played without an alternate, after officials suspended Glenn Ikonen on Friday after a random drug test detected a beta blocker in his body.
The drug is used to control high blood pressure and Ikonen, who said it was prescribed by his doctor in Sweden, told reporters he had not intentionally taken a drug on the banned list.
Canadian wheelchair curling skip Jim Armstrong led his team to a gold medal win Saturday in the final match of the Paralympic Winter Games, narrowly beating Korea 8-7.
The Canadians reached their final score midway through the game in the fourth end. Tension rose in the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre as the Korean team, skipped by Kim Haksung, edged a little bit closer with each end of the nail-biting match.
But in the eighth and final end, a rock thrown by Armstrong careened down the sheet of ice to smash one of two Korean rocks out of the rings, averting a possible tie and securing the gold for host Canada in front of a crowd of more than 5,000.
"It's tremendous and overwhelming," Armstrong said. "This game really showed that the best part of wheelchair curling is that no lead is safe."
The Vancouver event was the second time wheelchair curling was included in the Paralympics.
The 10 countries participating were Canada, the US, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
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Sweden played without an alternate, after officials suspended Glenn Ikonen on Friday after a random drug test detected a beta blocker in his body.
The drug is used to control high blood pressure and Ikonen, who said it was prescribed by his doctor in Sweden, told reporters he had not intentionally taken a drug on the banned list.
Canadian wheelchair curling skip Jim Armstrong led his team to a gold medal win Saturday in the final match of the Paralympic Winter Games, narrowly beating Korea 8-7.
The Canadians reached their final score midway through the game in the fourth end. Tension rose in the Vancouver Olympic/Paralympic Centre as the Korean team, skipped by Kim Haksung, edged a little bit closer with each end of the nail-biting match.
But in the eighth and final end, a rock thrown by Armstrong careened down the sheet of ice to smash one of two Korean rocks out of the rings, averting a possible tie and securing the gold for host Canada in front of a crowd of more than 5,000.
"It's tremendous and overwhelming," Armstrong said. "This game really showed that the best part of wheelchair curling is that no lead is safe."
The Vancouver event was the second time wheelchair curling was included in the Paralympics.
The 10 countries participating were Canada, the US, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
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