Norway rolls through China and into World semifinal

GRAND FORKS -- Less than 24 hours after dodging a bullet versus
Australia, Norway's Thomas Ulsrud packaged a near-flawless playoff
victory over China at the 2008 World Men's Curling Championship.

The European Championship runner-up saw his team score a 91 in
shooting percentage in beating Fengchun Wang's rookie outfit from
Harbin 7-5. The Chinese, who fired a collective 78 per cent, had
defeated Ulsrud the previous day and surprised all with a 7-4,
third-place finish in the round robin.

Ulsrud, who also finished 7-4 but who stole a stunning victory
Thursday night to avoid certain tiebreakers, dropped a deuce in the
first end but came right back with a three-count in the second. The
Norwegians added deuces in the fourth and sixth ends and never looked
back.

"We weren't happy with our performance last night," said Ulsrud.

"Today we went out and played the game we wanted to to play today."

Wang spoke through an interpreter after the game.

"This was the first time for us in a playoff at the world
championships," said Wang. "We are eager to win the game... (but we
are) a little bit nervous."

Norway moves on to Saturday's semi-final while China drops into
Saturday night's bronze medal game, and will meet the semi-final
loser. Friday night will see the Page 1 versus 2 playoff between
Canada's Kevin Martin and Scotland's David Murdoch, in which the
winner advances to Sunday's Championship final and the loser drops
into the semi-final.

Numerous television groups are delivering live and tape-delayed
action, plus highlight packages, to world curling fans. Eurosport,
CBC/CBCSports.ca/Bold (Canada), NBCOlympics.com and WCSN (United
States) and CurlTV are all on site in Grand Forks, with World Curling
Television (Production Manager Joanna Kelly) available for footage
inquiries at +1 701 777 5619 or +1 701 777 5621