Friday, 14 Jan 2011 – New Zealand's Junior Women's curlers guaranteed themselves a medal at the 2011 Pacific Junior Curling Championships in Naseby on Friday night.

In their third match of the day Chelsea Farley, Thivya Jeyaranjan, Tessa Farley, Emily Whelan and Katie Bauer won a nail-biting tiebreaker against defending champions China 7-5 for the last qualifying spot.

After just one win in their first five games, they beat Australia for the second time on Thursday afternoon and then followed it up with a good win against China on Friday morning. This left the Kiwis and the Chinese tied on a 3 win - 5 loss record for the last semi-final position, forcing the tiebreaker.

Korea and Japan topped the Women's double round robin with identical 7-1 win-loss records.

The curse of the extra end for NZ Men

In November the NZ Men's (open) team played 3 extra-end games at the Pacific Curling Championships, all against Korea. Korea won all three to take the best-of-five semi-final series 3-1.

New Zealand's Junior Men also played three extra end games this week, and also came away with a 0-from-3 record. The first two, against Japan, were crucial. If the results had gone the other way it would have been NZ, not Japan, playing off for the podium.

The Kiwi men (Sam Miller, Michael Smith, Willie Miller, Liam Dowling, and Tim McMillan) had to settle for a 2 win - 6 loss record and 4th place.

China, Korea, and Japan will contest the medals in the Men's competition. The defending champions China have improved throughout the tournament, and as top qualifiers earned a direct route to the final.

Tuesday, 11 Jan 2011 – New Zealand's young curlers are in with a chance of a top-three finish at the Pacific Junior Curling Championships in Naseby this week, but they have some work ahead of them.

Both the NZ Men and Women have a 1 win - 2 loss record, and will need to win at least two or three of their remaining 5 pool games to make the play-off rounds.

Junior Men

The Men's competition is already proving tight. All teams have dropped at least one game so far and there have been some very close results. NZ stole the last end of their match against Japan to force an extra end, but were unable to steal again for the win and went down 4-5.

Junior Women

Korea is unbeaten in the Women's section, while China and Japan have one loss each. New Zealand came out on top of their "must-win" match yesterday against Australia yesterday morning, but were well beaten by China in their afternoon game.

Friday, 7 Jan 2011 – Team line-ups have been confirmed for the 2011 Pacific Junior Curling Championships that get under way at Naseby's Maniototo Curling International rink next week.

Under-21 curlers from Australia, China, Korea, Japan, and New Zealand will be competing for the Pacific entry to the World Junior Championships later in the year.

The Korean Junior Men's team come from the Gyeonggi curling club with nearly 30 years curling experience between them. The Junior Women's team are from the same city and placed 2nd in the 2010 Pacific Junior Championship.

From Japan, the Junior Women are all from Hokkaido Curling Club and the Men are from Karuizawa, Miyota and Kitami clubs. All of them are students except for one professional fisherman!

Both the Men's and Women's teams from China (including coaches) herald from Harbin Curling Club. As the 2010 champions, both teams will start as favourites in their respective competitions.

All of the Australian competitors are from the Queensland Curling Club, with one player currently curling in the USA. New Zealand is represented by the current Under-21 Men's and Women's national champion sides. Chelsea Farley's women were also runners-up in the competitive Auckland Premier League this year, while for the men from Ranfurly, Wedderburn, Alexandra, and Otago Central clubs this is their "home" rink and they will undoubtedly have plenty of local support.

All teams will have two official 1-hour training sessions this Sunday (9th) and the double round-robin competition will start at 10:00 am the following day. Spectators are most welcome to watch all of the action from the warm lounge above the rink, with just a gold coin donation entry.

The top Men's and Women's sides after the preliminary rounds will qualify directly for their respective finals. They will play the winner of the semi-final between the second and third-placed teams for the gold medal, and the right to compete at March's World Junior Championships in Scotland.