Time swims!
Day 4 is about to begin and we're already in semi-finals territory. With Finland, Germany, Sweden and Norway in the semis in both the men and women's comp, the nordic countries' dominance of this sport has been made strikingly clear.
Meanwhile, the German media is doing a fantastic job covering the event. You can find lots of great video interviews at this site specially created for the tournament (you may want to use 'google translator' though).
However, the highlight for some will no doubt be this video interview of the Finnish ladies team, which amongst other things promotes their fundraising calendar (selling for 15 Euros each, bargain!). There is also a great interview with the South African blokes, which shows more hair and less skin. And of course, a little bit of controversy about a Russian player being expelled from the tournament for foul play.
There are also rumours that the Swedish are confidently boasting "We clean the Germans away!", which is a remarkable development because as we all know Swedes are most notorious for their modesty and politeness (except maybe towards the Danish).
If you have a secret crush on the Swedish women's team they have a great blog (in both English and Swedish) telling of their ordeals training for the WC.
And finally, this little gem from the CMAS Facebook feed:
An expert commentator noted that the Finnish women, who have just played defending Champion Germany to scoreless tie, were so poor a few years ago that they did not even compete in the Nordic Championships.
"They have really improved," he said, "but if you had asked me a few years ago, I would never have predicted this."
Let this be a source of encouragement to aspiring teams out there like South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and North America!
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