Paul Flemming’s flare for the dramatic lifted Canada to a gold-medal victory at the world senior men’s curling championship in Ostersund, Sweden.
Flemming was clutch in the last shot of the game as his Halifax Curling Club rink of third Peter Burgess, second Martin Gavin, lead Kris Granchelli and alternate Kevin Ouelette defeated Mike Farbelow of the United States 4-3 in Saturday’s final.
After the sixth and seventh ends were blanked, Burgess cleared some U.S. guards in a tense final end to set up Flemming, who needed a sublime takeout to remove a buried U.S. shot. No problem for the 55-year-old Haligonian.
BACK TO BACK DOUBLE GOLD! The skipper makes the runback for the WIN and the super celly! 4-3 victory for Canada over the U.S.! pic.twitter.com/SsOZxBoLch
— Curling Canada (@CurlingCanada) April 27, 2024
“I was just really feeling it on my last shot,” Flemming said in a Curling Canada news release. “I was just really seeing it, and we have really good sweepers, so I wanted to use them. They brought it back enough to make it.
“I get to share it with these guys,” he continued. “They were incredible, especially these last few games. It was well-earned, and quite honestly, I feel like it was well-deserved. We worked really hard.”
The Canadian men have now won five straight titles since 2018. The 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was a double gold medal day for Canada. In the women’s championship final, Canada’s Susan Froud of Newmarket, Ont., defeated Lithuania’s Virginija Paulauskaite 7-3 on Saturday morning.
It marked the second straight year Canadian teams swept the gold. Ottawa’s Howard Rajala of Ottawa and Sherry Anderson of Saskatoon prevailed in 2023 at Gangneung, South Korea. It’s the ninth time in the 21-year history of the world seniors that Canadian teams won both gold medals.
Canada has won 15 world senior women’s titles and 14 on the men’s side.
