The men's tournament saw China defeating the home team 5-7 in the final to take the title at the Karuizawa Ice Park Curling Hall.

Japan started the game well and the score was 3-2 to the hosts by the fifth end break.

However, things went downhill from the eight end where China made up the difference before scoring another two points in the next end.

China made sure of their victory in the tenth end when skip Jialiang Zang hit out one of the Japanese stones to score one point and win the match.

"This is my first time playing as skip in such a big event so I felt more responsible for the team," Zang, who already had seven Pacific-Asia Curling Championship gold medals to his name, said.

"I felt I needed to play well and help the team.

"The two semi-final games against Korea helped us a lot in this final because they were very tight games and they helped us build our confidence from those two games."

By being the top two placed teams in the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships 2014, both China and Japan have qualified for the World Men's Curling Championship 2015, due to place in Halifax, Canada.

South Korea overcame Australia 7-4 to take victory in the bronze medal match.

China's women defeated South Korea 7-6 to ensure a clean sweep of the gold medals for their nation at the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships
©Pacific-Asia Curling Championships/Facebook


Meanwhile in the women's game, China claimed the title with a 7-6 win over South Korea and in doing so guaranteed their nation the final Pacific-Asia zone place at the World Women's Curling Championship 2015, with Japan, the other team, participating as hosts.

After blanking the first end, South Korea battled back to ensure they were leading 3-2 at the fifth end break, before China came back fighting to see the game come right down to the last stone in an extra end, where the eventual winners stole the game as they scored one point.

"I'm feeling so good right now - wonderful," China skip Sijia Liu said.

"We are a new team and we have prepared, every one of us.

"We know we have some weakness in our team but we knew we needed to make ourselves stronger to qualify for the Worlds.

"Our only choice was a draw but we needed to ensure we didn't leave a double angle for Korea.

"Our choice was whether to leave it higher or lower.

"In the end we got lucky."

There was also a bronze medal for hosts Japan after they secured an 8-4 win over New Zealand.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
January 2014: Halifax announced as host of 2015 World Men's Curling Championship