Gold-medal game | Wheelchair curling | Sochi 2014 Paralympic Winter Games

Canada defeated Russia 8-3 to win their third consecutive wheelchair curling gold medal at Sochi 2014 at the Ice Cube Curling Centre. Canada’s victory resulted in Russia picking up silver while, Great Britain won 7-3 against China to win the bronze medals. Lead Sonja Gaudet has now played in all three of Canada’s gold medal winning Paralympic teams, which have also all been coached by Joe Rea. Meanwhile, skip Jim Armstrong and third Ina Forrest won their second Paralympic gold medals while for second Dennis Thiessen and alternate Mark Ideson, this was their first. In the gold-medal game between Russia and Canada, the home team took an early advantage as their skip Andrey Smirnov made a draw to score two points. Canada then took one point in the second end before they began a four end run of consecutive steals which played a significant contribution to their win. After stealing one point in the third end and another two points in the fourth end, they led 4-2 by the fourth end break. Russia were still in the game but gave up another steal of one point in the fifth end before Canada clinched the game in the next end. With his last stone, Canadian skip Jim Armstrong played a precise take-out on the Russian shot stone to leave his in the four foot ring. With last stone advantage, all Russian skip Andrey Smirnov had to do was hit Armstrong’s previous stone on the nose to score one point. He could not find enough weight however and gave up a steal of three points to take the score to 8-2 in Canada’s favour after six ends. Russia then scored one point in the seventh end before conceding the game after seven ends of play with the final score 8-3. After the game, Canada skip Jim Armstrong looked back on his team’s performance. He said: “Today we were on the right side of the inch and they weren’t. It was our day today, that’s really what it came down to.“ Silver medallists Russia, competing in the Paralympic Winter Games for the first time, consisted of skip Andrey Smirnov, third Marat Romanov, second Svetlana Pakhomova and lead Alexander Shevchenko. They were supported by alternate Oxana Slesarenko and coach Anton Batugin.