Canada's Kevin Martin is on the verge of lapping the field at the 2008 world Men's Curling Championship. With two wins in Tuesday's play in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Martin sits high atop the leaderboard with a record of 7-0. Six teams share second place with records of 4-3 after the completion of Draw Eleven play.
Martin and his team of John Morris, Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert were forced to use an extra end in their morning game against Norway before coming away with a 9-8 victory. Thomas Ulsrud provided the Canadian champions with their toughest test of the week, when they were able to build up a 5-3 lead after six ends of play. The seventh end would prove to be the Norwegians undoing as Martin and company were able to manufacture a big score of four.
Canada's second game of the day was decided much earlier, when Martin scored three in the first, forced one in the second and counted two more in the third en route to an abbreviated 9-4 win over Germany. The opportunity for the three count arose in the first end after German skip Andy Kapp decided to play a last rock, paper thin in turn double on two Canadian counters in the four foot. Unfortunately, for fans of last year's silver medalists, his attempt crashed on a centre line guard allowing Martin the draw to backing for three. Kapp and his German champions are part of the second place logjam along with Australia, France, Norway, Scotland and Denmark.
Play continues on Wednesday with Canada facing China and the Czech Republic which together, have amassed a total of five victories to date. Martin and his mates must remember however, that no matter how close they get to lapping the field in this preliminary race, there's going to be a re-start on the weekend when the playoffs begin and four teams get the chance to sprint to the finish line.
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