SURSEE – Canada and Korea became the first teams to quailfy for the playoffs at the 2008 World Wheelchair Curling Championships.

Canada, with Darryl Neighbour throwing last rocks, has now won six games in a row after an opening 7-0 loss to Italy. The Canadians scored Tuesday victories over defending champions Norway (7-0) and the United States (5-4), the latter with a last-gasp deuce in the final end.

The Canadians continue to experiment with different lineups. Gary Cormack skipped the Canadian squad in the win over Norway, while Gerry Austgarden moved in to skip the team to the tight victory over the United States. Earlier in the round-robin, Austgarden skipped while throwing second stones. 

Korea sits tied with Canada at 6-1, following a 6-1 victory over host Switzerland and an 8-4 win over Italy. Both Korea and Canada have confirmed a berth in the playoffs.

Korea's Hak Sum Kim fired an 80 per cent shooting average in the match against the Swiss, with his squad clocking an impressive 77 per cent team shooting average. Generally, a 50 per cent shooting average is considered "good" in wheelchair curling, a discipline which features no sweeping.

During the 2004 World Wheelchair Championship, the overall shooting percentage was 41 per cent. During the 2006 Paralympics, the overall percentage had climbed to 51 per cent.

Norway lost both Tuesday matches to fall into a tie with Italy at 4-3. Three other teams – Switzerland, Sweden and the United States – are tied at 3-4.

Japan, Russia and Scotland are all at 2-5 and are out of the playoff picture. The Scots, who won their Tuesday afternoon tilt 9-2 over Japan, had previously never missed a podium place in Worlds history, scoring gold twice and bronze twice, including third-place honours last year in Solleftea.

Scotland also won silver at the 2006 Paralympic Winter Games in Pinerolo, Italy.

The round robin concludes Wednesday, with tiebreakers booked for Thursday. The Championship concludes with the final on February 9.

Real-time results - including shot-by-shot graphics and detailed statistics - are available at: www.wwcc.curlit.com

In addition, the International Paralympic Committee will broadcast packaged coverage of the semifinals and finals, at between 90 minutes and two hours in length, located at the web TV channel www.ParalympicSport.TV

An embedded version of the channel is also located on the IPC website at: www.paralympic.org