The Olympic qualification event (branded as the 2021 Olympic Qualification Event presented by Asito for sponsorship reasons) is an international

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns slidi ...

tournament that was held from 5–18 December 2021 in

Leeuwarden Leeuwarden (; fy, Ljouwert, longname=yes /; Stadsfries dialects, Town Frisian: ''Liwwadden''; Leeuwarder dialect: ''Leewarden'') is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in Fri ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The first international curling tournament to be hosted by the Netherlands, the event was the final

qualifier In linguistics, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure which ''modifies'' the meaning of another element in the structure. For instance, the adjective "red" acts as a modifier in the noun phrase "red ball", provi ...

for

curling at the 2022 Winter Olympics The curling competitions of the 2022 Winter Olympics were held at the Beijing National Aquatics Centre, one of the Olympic Green venues. Curling competitions were scheduled for every day of the games, from February 2 to February 20. This was ...

, and was established as part of changes to the qualification process necessitated due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. The tournament was played between the men's, women's, and mixed doubles teams that qualified for the 2020 or 2021 World Curling Championships, but had yet to qualify for the Olympics, joined by additional teams who qualified through a pre-qualification tournament in November. The top three

National Olympic Committees A National Olympic Committee (NOC) is a national constituent of the worldwide Olympic movement. Subject to the controls of the International Olympic Committee, NOCs are responsible for organizing their people's participation in the Olympic Gam ...

(NOCs) in the men's and women's tournaments, and the top two NOCs in the mixed doubles tournament, advanced to the Olympic curling tournament. Denmark, Italy, and Norway qualified to the men's tournament. Great Britain, Japan, and South Korea qualified to the women's tournament, while Australia and the United States qualified in mixed doubles.

Sponsorship controversy

Live streaming of the mixed doubles event was cancelled by some international broadcasters, including

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

and

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

, due to the sponsorship of a Dutch

sex toy A sex toy is an object or device that is primarily used to facilitate human sexual pleasure, such as a dildo, artificial vagina or vibrator. Many popular sex toys are designed to resemble human genitals, and may be vibrating or non-vibratin ...

store, EasyToys, whose logo appeared on the ice. Following the mixed doubles event, the ads were replaced with the statement "#equalityforall" for the women's and men's events.

Mixed doubles

Qualification

World Ranking

Teams

Round robin standings

''Final Round Robin Standings''

Round robin results

All draw times are listed in

Central European Time Central European Time (CET) is a standard time which is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The time offset from UTC can be written as UTC+01:00. It is used in most parts of Europe and in a few North African countries. CET ...

( UTC+01:00).

Draw 1

''Sunday, December 5, 9:00''

Draw 2

''Sunday, December 5, 12:30''

Draw 3

''Sunday, December 5, 16:00''

Draw 4

''Sunday, December 5, 19:30''

Draw 5

''Monday, December 6, 10:00''

Draw 6

''Monday, December 6, 14:30''

Draw 7

''Monday, December 6, 19:00''

Draw 8

''Tuesday, December 7, 9:00''

Draw 9

''Tuesday, December 7, 12:30''

Draw 10

''Tuesday, December 7, 16:00''

Draw 11

''Tuesday, December 7, 19:30''

Draw 12

''Wednesday, December 8, 10:00''

Draw 13

''Wednesday, December 8, 14:30''

Draw 14

''Wednesday, December 8, 19:00''

Playoffs

Semifinal 1

''Thursday, December 9, 9:00''

Semifinal 2

''Thursday, December 9, 9:00''

Qualification Game 1

''Thursday, December 9, 15:00''

Qualification Game 2

''Thursday, December 9, 18:00''

Men

Qualification

World Ranking

Teams

Round robin standings

''Final Round Robin Standings''

Round robin results

All draw times are listed in

( UTC+01:00).

Draw 1

''Saturday, December 11, 14:00''

Draw 2

''Sunday, December 12, 9:00''

Draw 3

''Sunday, December 12, 19:00''

Draw 4

''Monday, December 13, 14:00''

Draw 5

''Tuesday, December 14, 9:00''

Draw 6

''Tuesday, December 14, 19:00''

Draw 7

''Wednesday, December 15, 14:00''

Draw 8

''Thursday, December 16, 9:00''

Draw 9

''Thursday, December 16, 19:00''

Playoffs

Qualification Game 1

''Friday, December 17, 15:00''

Qualification Game 2

''Saturday, December 18, 15:00''

Women

Qualification

World Ranking

Teams

Round robin standings

''Final Round Robin Standings''

Round robin results

All draw times are listed in

( UTC+01:00).

Draw 1

''Saturday, December 11, 9:00''

Draw 2

''Saturday, December 11, 19:00''

Draw 3

''Sunday, December 12, 14:00''

Draw 4

''Monday, December 13, 9:00''

Draw 5

''Monday, December 13, 19:00''

Draw 6

''Tuesday, December 14, 14:00''

Draw 7

''Wednesday, December 15, 9:00''

Draw 8

''Wednesday, December 15, 19:00''

Draw 9

''Thursday, December 16, 14:00''

Playoffs

Three teams, Japan, South Korea and Latvia qualified for the play-offs to decide the final two places at Beijing 2022. The teams finishing second and third, South Korea and Japan, face off in the first Qualifier; the winner qualifies for Beijing. The loser then faces fourth-placed Latvia in the second and final qualifier, with the winner of that match taking the final place in Beijing.

Qualification Game 1

''Friday, December 17, 10:00''

Qualification Game 2

''Saturday, December 18, 10:00''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2021 Olympic Qualification Event - Curling 2021 in Dutch sport Qualification for the 2022 Winter Olympics 2021 in curling Olympic Qualification Event Sport in Leeuwarden Curling in the Netherlands