Latvian adventurers

I've had a couple of emails from friends we made on our Latvian adventures with the Reform Club recently, so here is a Black Balsam toast to the Gulbis team at the Edinburgh International Curling Championship. Team of the Day! Above, Ainars Gulbis and Normunds Sarsunds.

Aivars Avotins plays lead.

Normunds Sarsuns, the second

Ainars Gulbis, third

Ritvars Gulbis

Quiet and well spoken!

Cheers! I'll have blackcurrant with mine.

For the record, the Latvians have had a rough time and are winless in three games. But it's all good practice for them on their way to the Le Gruyere European Championships next week.

Pics by Bob

Saturday's captions

"I'm just cooling them down, and I'll be there in a minute!" Andy Kapp

"Did you see where our skip went?" David Edwards and Gordon Muirhead

"NO papparazzi! NO photos. I have a contract with Hello magazine!" Lockhart Steele

"Ouch. This ice is fair hurting my hand!" Logan Gray

"I'm going to close my eyes for a second or two while my team figure out what to do." Colin Campbell, Richard Woods and Pete Loudon.

Results and standings are here.

Saturday morning

Good morning, and an apology for the lateness of the post. No, I didn't sleep in. There's just been a few hiccups on the connection front. Anyway, thanks to Alex Mitchell who came to the rescue, the blog is now connected to the world again.

It was the third game for the Peter Loudon team, and they won this morning. So they are the only undefeated team in Section D. All the results and standings are here.

Here Pete sorts out Colin Campbell and Richard Woods!

Tom Brewster's side are undefeated in Section C.

Here they are in action, Duncan Fernie and David Edwards work on Tom's stone.

Italian sweeping power!

But the Scots were too strong for the Joel Retornaz's side, just.

Andy Kapp's team are also undefeated in Section C after three games.

More to come.

Friday's Award

And the award for 'Colourful Curler of the Day' goes to......... Scott Macleod.

Scott is a member of the Sandy Reid team, alongside Moray Combe and David Soutar. He's President of the Scottish Universities Curling Association this season, and you can see how he used to look by clicking here. We like his new image! For those of us with little hair, we are just jealous!

Friday's last post

So, what's the position at the Edinburgh International Championship, sponsored by Belhaven Best, at the end of play tonight?

The six teams in sections C and D have played two rounds. Peter Loudon is the only side to have won both in D. Tom Brewster and Andy Kapp (the holders) have both won two games in Section C.

The teams in Sections A and B had three games today. In Section A David Murdoch came from behind, scoring two in the eighth to beat the Iain Watt team, to stay undefeated. David Sik (that's him above) also came through against Sandy Reid to finish the day on three wins!

Warwick Smith and Lee McCleary met in the third round of Section B. Both were undefeated. And it was Team Smith which remained unblemished with a 5-2 win over the McCleary four.

Warwick Smith

Lee McCleary

Find the linescores and standings here.

Bob's Team of the Day

Right, this is my team of today - Andrey Drosdov's Russian side. Why this choice? Well, with the World Seniors and Mixed Doubles heading for Chelyabinsk later this season, why not?

This is skip Andrey Drostov.

This is the front end, Artem Bolduzev and Alexander Kirikov.

This is third player, Alexey Stukalsky

Alexander Kirikov

Artem Bolduzev

Here's Artem's delivery

Andrey Drosdov

Alexander

Alexey

And a caption competition!

And how are they doing in the competition? Not so good today, with losses against Lee McCleary and Thomas Dufour. And you can find the linescores and results here.

Pics by Bob.

Friday's smile

"Don't look now, but.........."

"My skip told me to put a plug in it."

"I've been growing this for three weeks and it's still itchy."

"I do wish these two would stop going on so.... and I can have some quality zzzzzzs'"

"Oh Dave, I just canna take it any more!"

"I'll just have un petit nibble."

Other captions are available. Can you do better. Pics by Bob.