FÜSSEN – No wonder Lene Nielsen is smiling.

The personable young skip from Denmark has her team in second place at 4-1 in the women's standings at the 2007 Le Gruyère European Curling Championships, and all this in only her second season as a skip.

"We're enjoying this," said Nielsen, after upsetting World bronze medallist Kelly Wood of Scotland 8-4.

"It's our first time at a really big event for our team."

Danish women's curling first shot to prominence in 1982, when skip Helena Blach Lavrsen won the World Championship. Blach Lavrsen added Olympic silver in 1998, and the first real Danish threat since then came last year from the Dupont sisters, Madeleine and Denise. They earned a surprise silver at the 2007 Worlds in Aomori, Japan.

Nielsen, along with teammates Helle Simonsen and Maria Poulson, are former teammates of the Duponts, appearing in European and World Championship play in 2004 and 2005. Nielsen and Poulson also joined the Duponts at the 2006 Olympic Winter Games.

"We were together, and now we play against each other all the time," said Nielsen.

Who decided you would skip the new team?

"They did," said Nielsen, gesturing to her teammates. "I accepted it.

"I don't know, I guess I'm a fast learner."

In other women's matches, Sweden's Anette Norberg stayed atop the women's rankings at 5-0 with a 9-7 win over defending champions Russia, while Switzerland's Mirjam Ott kept pace with Denmark with an 11-1 win over Austria. Italy's Diana Gaspari was an 8-5 winner over Finland, and Germany's Andrea Schöpp continued to struggle, dropping a 7-4 result to previously winless Czech Republic.

In men's action, Germany's Andy Kapp played hometown hero yet again, with an 8-6 comeback victory over Italy's Joel Retornaz, Denmark's Johnny Frederiksen edged Switzerland's Toni Müller 9-8, Norway's streaking Thomas Ulsrud beat the Czech Republic's Jiri Snitil 6-5, Finland's Kalle Kiiskinen dodged France's Thomas Dufour 8-4 and Scotland's David Murdoch came out blazing against Sweden's Peja Lindholm for an 8-4 victory.

Norway leads the pack at 4-0, with Germany, Denmark and Switzerland all at 3-1, and Finland, Scotland and Sweden at 2-2. 

Competition continues through to the Championship Finals on December 8, with live television and webstreamed coverage on Eurosport, NRK (Norway), Eurosport.com and CurlTV.com.