Fredericton was in full voice as home favourites Canada secured back-to-back wins to start the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship on Saturday (26 April).

Husband-and-wife duo, Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant, began the day with a commanding 10-5 victory over Germany before going 2-0 after defeating Denmark 6-4 in the evening session.

A total of 20 curling pairs, divided into two groups, took to the ice across three sessions of round-robin action and with varying degrees of success.

Joining the Canadians in the Group A winning column were Scotland, represented by world no.1 men’s skip Bruce Mouat and Olympic women’s champion Jennifer Dodds, reigning world champions Sweden and Beijing 2022 mixed doubles champions, Italy.

Scotland cruised to back-to-back victories over the Netherlands and the People’s Republic of China, while Oskar Eriksson and Anna Hasselborg edged past Denmark’s Jasmin and Henrik Holtermann in the morning 4-5 before seeing off the Netherlands 9-4.

Italy, meanwhile bested Finland 10-3 before returning to do the exact same to Germany in the evening.

Over in Group B, Switzerland’s Alina Pätz and Sven Michel were notably defeated by Australia’s Tahil Gill and Dean Hewitt.

The duo, who made history at Beijing 2022 as Australia’s first-ever Olympic curlers, set the tone early with a three-point second end. They then clinched two points in the fourth and even stole one point from the Swiss during their power play to win convincingly, 7-3.

Elsewhere, Estonia saw off the tournament’s other Antipodean pair, New Zealand, 8-4 to start their tournament with a win. They were joined in victory by other Group B winners Japan, United States and Norway.

The World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Fredericton is also doubling as a qualifier for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, with Olympic Qualification Points awarded to teams based on finishing result. These points will be used to determine quota spots*.

For more information on olympic qualification, see here.

*As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes’ participation at the Milano Cortina Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Milano Cortina 2026.