Russia loses this cold war

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/12/2010 (5709 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

And so in the end, the biggest losers in the convoluted Russian Curling Saga of 2010 appear to have been the Russians themselves.

Jason Gunnlaugson, Justin Richter and Tyler Forrest will curl on this week in the Manitoba men’s zone playdowns, their brief stint as the Russian men’s national team now nothing more than a padded air miles account and a great story in the club lounge for years to come.

Not so for the fledgling Russian men’s curling program. Because with a disastrous 1-8 performance at the European Curling Championships last week, curling for the Russian national men’s team is now over for this winter and the impact of the Russian federation’s bizarre behaviour this year may yet be felt for years to come.

For starters, the poor performance of a Russian men’s team that was slapped together just two weeks before the Europeans, immediately after Gunnlaugson et al were fired, has cost that country a berth in the 2011 Mens Worlds in Regina.

The Europeans are a bit like the CFL, where just about everyone advances. This year, eight of the 10 men’s teams in Group A advanced to the Worlds, including a pathetic French team that finished the week at 3-7.

That easily could have been the Russians this year — and it’s hard to imagine it would not have been had Gunnlaugson still been throwing the brick for the Russian men, with Richter and Forrest backing him up, as they’d been doing all fall as hired guns for Russia.

Just ask Gimli’s Patti Wuthrich, who coached Gunnlaugson and company and was also at the Euros last week coaching the new Russian men’s team. “There’s absolutely no question,” Wuthrich said Tuesday, “that with the three Canadian guys still playing, we would have qualified for the Worlds. “No question.”

Wuthrich said Gunnlaugson’s replacement at skip — Andre Drozdov — struggled mightily. He needed only a bite anywhere in the four-foot to beat France — he hit the eight-foot. He needed only the eight-foot to beat Switzerland in an extra end — he hit the 12-foot. He tailor-made an easy double-takeout for Scotland to beat Russia with a last rock. And so it went.

And so it will go. Because not only did the poor performance at the Euros prevent the Russian men from advancing to what would have been their first ever appearance at the Mens Worlds, they actually took a huge step backward.

So poor was the Russian record at the Euros that the Russian men have now been relegated back down to Group B for the next Europeans, with the likes of Latvia and Ireland, and will have to finish Top 2 in that group next year just to get back to Group A in 2012 and earn a chance to challenge for a Worlds spot again way down the road in 2013.

That is a monumental step backward for a Russian program that hired Wuthrich, Gunnlaugson and the rest this spring precisely because they needed to fast track a national men’s program in time for the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

As host, the Russians automatically get an entry for their men’s and women’s teams in Sochi and no one — not the IOC, and certainly not the Russians — want the Russian men to embarrass themselves in front of the entire world.

Indeed, the Russian Saga this year was enough of an embarassment, so much so that even one of the men who would seem to have the right to be most embittered right now actually feels sorry for his former adopted countrymen.

“It’s too bad, it really is,” Gunnlaugson said yesterday. “I’d have liked to have seen them in Regina. It would have been better for Patti and the other guys.”

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Gunnlaugson and company have regrouped since being fired from their jobs as the Russian national team in November, shortly after they won the ‘Russian Brier.’ The three men have recruited a fourth player, Bryce McEwen, and will challenge this week for a berth into the Manitoba mens curling championship next February as they take the first step in attempting what would be an all-time first — winning their second national mens curling title in the same winter.

As for Wuthrich, the future is more cloudy. She says she has no idea whether she will now continue as the director of high performance for the Russians. She said all she heard at the Europeans was that she would be flown to Moscow again next month to discuss her future.

In the meantime, she says she’s going to use the holidays to ponder her own end of things. “Whether I want to return is very much up in the air right now,” Wuthrich said. “It’s a lot of politics over there — and a very different culture.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca