Sweden's Anette Norberg, the 2006 Olympic champion and two-time reigning World champion, heads the field for the 2007 World Women's Curling Championship, March 17-25 at the Aomori Prefecture Skating Rink in Aomori, Japan.

Twelve countries are set to battle for the global crown - Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.

Norberg and her team of Eva Lund, Cathrine Lindahl and Anna Svärd captured gold last year at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Turin, defeating Switzerland's Mirjam Ott in the final, 7-6 in an extra end. Last year they also won their second straight World Women's Championship in Grande Prairie, Canada, with a thrilling 10-9 win over Debbie McCormick of the United States - after also winning at Paisley, Scotland in 2005 - and will attempt to defend their world crown for an unprecedented third consecutive time. Such a feat, which has never been accomplished in either women's or men's world play, would carry Norberg ahead of fellow back-to-back champions Elisabet Gustafson of Sweden (1998 and 1999), Sandra Schmirler of Canada (1993 and 1994) and Dordi Nordby of Norway (1990 and 1991).

This marks the third consecutive year that the men's and women's world championships are being conducted separately. In 2005, for the first time since 1988, they were contested at different venues, with the Ford World Men's in Victoria, Canada and the World Women's in Paisley. In addition, 12 countries, instead of the previous 10, competed for global honours.

The Page Playoffs pair 1 vs 2 and 3 vs 4 at the conclusion of the round robin. The winner of 1 vs 2 match advances directly to Sunday's final, while the loser goes to Saturday's semi-final.  Meanwhile, the winner of 3 vs 4 match  also goes to the semi-final, which becomes the bronze-medal game, while the loser is eliminated.

Among the challengers to Norberg is the USA's Debbie McCormick, the 2006 finalist who also won the only world title for U.S. women in 2003.  The two-time Olympian will return with the same team from last year's Grande Prairie shootout.

Also returning is Canada's Kelly Scott from Kelowna, the 2006 World bronze medallist. The Canadians will be seeking a leading 14th World title since the championship began in 1979. The last Canadian women's team to win the world championship was skipped by Colleen Jones in 2004 in Gävle, Sweden.

Germany's Andrea Schöpp, the 1988 world champion and six-time European champion, makes her 14th appearance at the Worlds after finishing fourth in last year's competition. Her squad is joined by four other teams making their second consecutive Worlds trip: Switzerland's 1999 world junior champion Silvana Tirinzoni, Denmark's Angelina Jensen, Italy's recent European silver medallist Diana Gaspari, and Scotland's Kelly Wood.

Completing the field is the young squad from Russia skipped by 21-year-old Ludmila Privivkova, who stunned observers by winning gold at the recent Le Gruyère European Championship, China's Bingyu Wang, making her third straight World appearance, and Japan, skipped by Moe Meguro, who directs more than half of the Japanese 2006 Olympic team which captured the heart of this host nation in Turin last year.

The event headquarters hotel, for athletes and officials, is the Hotel Aomori (Tel +81-17-775-4141, Fax +81-17-773-5201). The media workroom contact numbers are not yet defined, but WCF Media Relations Officer George Karrys is available at +81-80-3026-1292.

There will be extensive domestic and international television coverage of the World Women's Curling Championship. Japan's NHK will televise all Japanese team matches throughout the competition, while Canada's CBC-TV will televise the semi-final (bronze-medal game) on March 24 and the final (gold-medal game) on March 25.

In addition, WCTV, the television arm of the World Curling Federation, will provide more than 20 hours of game coverage for Eurosport, in addition to offering a daily highlights package to the European Broadcast Union.

Finally, NBCSports.com will webstream over 20 games, including all playoff and medal-round matches, live over the internet. The games are available at:  http://NBCSports.MediaZone.com

Results of the 2007 World Women's Curling Championship will be available on the World Curling Federation website at:  worldcurling.org