MEDICINE HAT, Alta. — You could excuse Team Isabella Wranå if they weren't at their best this week.
The Swedish squad arrived at the P&H Masters straight from Ostrava, Czechia, where they captured gold at the European Curling Championships.
Instead, Wranå maintained the momentum and rolled right through to the title, with an emphatic 11-2 victory in Sunday's women's final over Japan's Team Miku Nihira.
It's the second championship for Wranå in the Grand Slam of Curling presented by Molson Canadian.
"It feels amazing," said Wranå, who claimed the Players' Championship in 2023. "It's just so fun playing these big games and even more fun when they go your way. I'm really proud of how the team performed today and made my job very easy."
"We put in a lot of work to be able to play at this level," she added. "This week, with the Euros last week, we've just been focusing on sleeping, eating in between games, and that's been working."
The team of Wranå, third Almida de Val, second Moa Dryburgh and lead Maria Larsson banked $34,000 from the prize purse.
It's been quite the calendar year for Wranå, who also earned gold at the Olympic Winter Games in mixed doubles and skipped her women's team to bronze at the World Women's Curling Championship.
Dryburgh joined the team full-time during the off-season, with Larsson moving over one position and Linda Stenlund shifting from lead to alternate.
Wranå said it feels amazing that the team has carried the momentum into the new season and Olympic cycle.
"Moa has been getting into the lineup really well," Wranå said. "It's just a great match, and I'm really eager to see what's in the future."
Wranå finished the preliminary round with a 2-2 record (seven points), with both losses in shootouts. She eliminated Switzerland's Team Xenia Schwaller in the quarterfinals and Japan's Team Ikue Kitazawa in the semifinals.
Nihira went 2-2 with six points in the round-robin and needed a marathon Saturday with wins over Canada's Team Taylor Reese-Hansen in a tiebreaker, top-seeded Team Eun-ji Gim of South Korea in the quarterfinals and Canada's Team Selena Sturmay in the semifinals.
Wranå got out to a fast start in the final, with a tap for three points in the first end.
After holding Nihira to a single in the second, Wranå drew to score another three points in the third and take complete control of the match.
Nihira attempted a high-risk, no-reward shot to potentially score two in the fourth that resulted in a steal for Wranå and a 7-1 lead.
Wranå never let up, sitting five in the fifth to force Nihira to hit and roll to the button for another single.
Nihira came up short on her last in six, and Wranå iced the game with a shot to score four points.
Wranå credited learning more and more about the ice and the rocks for her team's success during the week.
"I feel like we had a really good control on where to put the broom in this game, and that helps," she said. "When you really trust the ice as well, it's easier to make those big shots."
The title victory bodes well for Wranå with three more Grand Slams on tap over the next six weeks.
"That brings us in a good position to qualify for the rest of the Slams and the Players' (Cup) and all of that," she said. "For now, we're just going to go home, practise a bit more, and then we're heading back to Sydney in a week."
And home for a rest?
"We'll have a rest day at home, so that's nice," Wranå said with a smile.
Nihira, third Momoha Tabata, second Sae Yamamoto and lead Mikoto Nakajima were playing in their first Grand Slam women's final. They collected $26,000 from the prize purse.
Elsewhere, Calgary's Team Lila Koe defeated Edmonton's Team Alena Yurko 6-1 to win the Jr. GSOC U21 women's title.
