Perse student keeps her cool to win third national curling crown
Lina (Year 10) has made it a hat-trick of national curling titles after winning the English Mixed Doubles Championships for the third year in a row.
She linked up with her dad Michael once again as they took gold at the tournament in Preston in dramatic fashion.
After a series of eight matches, they finished runners-up in their pool and went on to beat the winners of the other group 7-5 to book their place in the final, where they narrowly prevailed 6-5 over their opponents in an encounter that went down to the wire.
Lina said: “There were a lot of good teams in the competition and we really thought we weren’t even going to get to the semi-finals until another team lost to a lower-placed opponent at the end of the group stage.
“The final was so close. The other team were up by two shots going into the last end, which is quite difficult to get back, but somehow we got three and their last shot didn’t make it.
“It hasn’t really sunk in that we’ve won three English titles in a row, but the competition there was so tough and we just managed to scrape through.”
As a result of their success, Lina and her dad will represent England at the qualifying tournament for the World Mixed Doubles Championships in Dumfries in December.
They will need to finish in the top four at the competition to make it through to the World Championships in Fredericton, Canada, next April.
Lina said: “At the qualifying tournament, we are going to be playing against a lot of the teams who are based in Canada, where they have really good curling rinks everywhere, even though they will be representing different countries, so it’s going to be very tough.
“I think we have a small chance if we play really well, but it would be amazing to qualify because the World Championships are going to be in Canada and I’ve never been there before.”
After the qualifying tournament, Lina will be heading off to Finland to join up with the England women’s team at the World Women’s Junior B Championships, with the prize of a place at the World Junior Championships in Italy next April at stake.