Gushue tops Ramsfjell to clinch playoff spot at world men’s curling championship

Canada’s Brad Gushue clinched a playoff spot with a 7-4 win over Magnus Ramsfjell of Norway at the world men’s curling championship on Thursday.

Canada led 4-2 after four ends, thanks to deuces in both the second and fourth, and then added singles in the sixth, seventh and ninth ends.

Gushue and his St. John’s, N.L.-team of Mark Nichols, E.J. Harnden and Geoff Walker improved to 8-1 to remain in second place in the 13-team round-robin standings.

Six-time champion Nik Edin of Sweden sits in first with a perfect 9-0 record following a 6-4 win over the United States (5-5) in Thursday’s morning draw.

Canada was set to face Sweden later on Thursday.

Gushue’s squad had a 93 per cent shooting-accuracy game against Norway (4-6), one of the better efforts of the week, but the skip believes there’s still a higher gear to achieve.

“It was better than last night but not as sharp as we can be,” Gushue said. “We still had a couple of sloppy misses and sloppy shots that against a team like Niklas tonight or another top team, we may not get away with it.”

In other Draw 15 games on Thursday, Scotland (7-2) scored a 5-3 win over the Netherlands (2-7) and Italy (7-3) earned a 10-4 victory over New Zealand (0-9).

Round-robin play continues through Friday night.

The top six teams qualify for the playoffs, with the top two seeds advancing directly to the semifinal. The medal games will be held on Sunday.

“We want to get into those semifinals,” Nichols said. “You want to avoid that qualification game. We had to go through it last year, and it’s a ton of pressure because you know if you’re in it, you’re going to be playing a really tough team. It would be nice to move ourselves one step forward, so we still have work to do.”

Gushue won world gold in 2017 at Edmonton but has settled for silver on three occasions since, including last year in Ottawa.

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