Tirinzoni still going to worlds, Cortina
A titan of the women’s fours game has been dispatched to this fall’s European championship sidelines .
Silvana Tirinzoni’s foursome will still go to the women’s world championship, but the powerhouse team from Aarau lost the Swiss national semifinal 7-4 to Corrie Huerlimann’s team from Zug.
The victory eliminated Tirinzoni from the competition hosted at Bern, and put Huerlimann into a best-of-three finale against top pool finisher Xenia Schwaller of Zurich.
Schwaller won the first playoff game 6-5 but dropped the second match 5-2, leading to a sudden-death playoff game on Saturday.
The finale was a tight battle. Up 2-1 in the fifth end, Huerlimann—the younger sister of former Tirinzoni teammate Briar Huerlimann—stole a single to lead 3-1, before Schwaller scored the first deuce of the match in the seventh end to tie it up.
Huerlimann then made a great come-around hit to snap a three-ender, which sent Schwaller reeling—but not for long, as the Zurich foursome replied by scoring their own three to tie it up again.
In the climactic end, Huerlimann faced a draw through a port into the four-foot rings and made it, setting off a celebration.
It’s the first national title for Huerlimann, who is backed up by Celine Schwizgebel, Marina Loertscher and Stefanie Berset. The youngsters will represent Switzerland at the Euros in November (location TBC).
The team currently ranks 27th in the World Curling Team Rankings, while Tirinzoni sits second and Schwaller seventh.
Tirinzoni won her fourth consecutive world title in 2023—undefeated throughout—before losing last year’s world final to Canada’s Rachel Homan.
The Swiss side also added the season-ending Players’ Championship to their trophy case.
On the men’s side, Yannick Schwaller’s favourites also had to play the semifinal, which was quite familial—the defending champions defeated Kim Schwaller’s Oberwallis team by scoring two in the extra-end for a 7-5 win.
Schwaller’s decorated Geneva crew—with Benoit Schwarz-van Berkel, Sven Michel and Pablo Lechat—then turned it on the best-of-three finals against Marco Hoesli of Glarus, winning both matches to clinch the title.
Schwaller, who is also pre-confirmed for the men's world championship, will join Huerlimann in representing Switzerland at this fall’s Europeans.
Tirinzoni and Schwaller have already been awarded Switzerland’s berths in the 2026 Milano-Cortina Olympic Games, thanks to previous event results.
Incoming Swiss high performance chief Claudio Pescia is unlikely to make a change to the existing Olympic selection criteria.
Pescia starts his role on May 1.
