The newly formed men's national curling team around skip Mark Muskatewitz has moved into the semi-finals of the European Championships in the Estonian capital Tallinn despite a defeat in their last group match.
Muskatewitz and his colleagues Sixten Totzek, Daniel Neuner, Ryan Sherrard and Sebastian Swiss lost against defending champion and top favorite Sweden 2: 8 and could not improve the balance of five successes. But because at the same time Norway defeated Switzerland 7: 8, showed with Germany, Norway and Switzerland three teams on a balance of 5: 4 victories, and so had to decide the so-called stone game.
In the process, in preparation for such a scenario, two stones are placed at the end of each final training session. Who in the addition of all nine stone games in the overall section has the smallest distance to the center, continues. Germany was just 24.25 centimeters ahead of Norway (24.84) and the Swiss team (25.51).
Muskatewitz represents in Tallinn the actual Skip of the German national team, Alexander Baumann had waived for personal reasons to start at the European Championships. In the semifinals Germany meets again in the evening (19 clock) on Sweden, a final would be a sensation. The second semi-final will be played by Scotland and Italy. The winners move into the final on Saturday, the bronze medal will be awarded in the small final on Friday. In 2008, Germany won a bronze medal at a European Championship for the last time.