The third trip to the World Financial Group Continental Cup of Curling was the best of the bunch for the Mirjam Ott rink, albeit in a losing cause.
“It’s been great. We’ve had a lot of fun,” said the legendary Swiss skip. “You have great ice here and the organizing is very good. We really enjoy it, even though it’s way too cold here.”
Ott, 38, was a member of the championship-winning Team World line-up in 2006 in Chilliwack and 2008 in Camrose.
“It’s a special event with all those special competitions. It makes for a lot of fun, especially playing together with the other pals from Europe,” said the eight-time medallist at the European championships. “As for the curling, we have really good games. We have good ice, arena ice, and we have lots of spectators watching too.”
The Ott foursome of third Carmen Schaefer, second Carmen Kueng and lead Janine Greiner lost 7-5 to Jennifer Jones of Winnipeg in the opening draw, 7-5 to Cheryl Bernard of Calgary in draw four and 22-8 in skins to Jones in draw nine.
“As a skip you can really use the team events to make your team stronger. It’s on good ice and against good teams so that helps for sure,” Ott said. “The rest [mixed doubles and singles] is more for fun. There is not really a lot of team aspect there but that’s OK; it’s just one event in the year and it’s still a great thing.”
Three men’s and three women’s rinks with Team World cobbled together only 102 points out of a possible 400 in the seventh annual Continental Cup. Team North America collected a record-breaking 298 points in capturing its fourth cup title.
“We didn’t do as well as in previous years,” said Ott, who curled 72 per cent in the St. Albert event.
During a decorated career spanning 20 years in the sport, Ott was awarded silver twice at three Olympics (2006 as a skip and 2002 as the third for Luzia Ebnother). She was crowned the European champion in 1996 and 2008 and was last year’s bronze medallist. She was also awarded bronze at worlds in 2008.
“For sure the Olympic silver medals are special, but I think every international medal is good to win. It’s always a new experience and it’s a lot of fun,” said Ott, who has competed at five worlds and nine European championships.
“I love curling. There are lot of aspects that make it very interesting. It’s strategy. It’s teamwork. It’s power from sweeping. It’s precision and all the team communication. You are a group of only four persons who have to work really close together and spend much time together. You also have to understand each other really well and get along good, too.”
At the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, Ott finished fourth with an overall 6-5 record. In the bronze-medal game the Swiss lost 12-6 to China’s Bingyu Wang. Coaching the Swiss was St. Albert’s Ken Tralnberg.
“I met Ken at the Olympics in Salt Lake City [Tralnberg was the fifth man for Kevin Martin’s silver-medal rink in 2002] and we kept in contact. Three years ago we came for a bonspiel to Edmonton and I asked Ken if he can help us for some practice. He showed up and it just worked out really well so we called him a team coach and brought him a couple of times to Europe, specifically to Switzerland,” Ott explained. “These last two years with Ken was really great. He helped us a lot. It was a good thing to work with him.”
