Ten national teams will compete in the A group while a further 10 women's teams and 16 men's teams will compete in the B group.

Both reigning champion skips will be in Champéry at the Palladium Ice Hall to defend their titles.

Sweden's Niklas Edin won his first senior international title in Aberdeen last year while Germany's Andrea Schöpp also won European gold in Aberdeen in 2009 – her seventh - before going on to win the women's world championship title in Swift Current, Canada, at the end of last season.

This will be Schöpp's 24th appearance at the European Championships, a new record which beats the 23 appearances made over the years by Norway's Dordi Nordby.

Two former European champions are among the men's skips – twice winner Andreas Kapp from Germany, who won in 1992 and 1997, and Scotland's Hammy McMillan, who is making a return in the blue of Scotland after an absence from the international arena of eight years.

McMillan has won the European title a total of five times, including three successive wins in the mid-90s, making him the most successful men's skip in European Championship history.

Also in the men's A group are Norway, the in-form European team from last season with silver medals in both the Olympic Winter Games and 2010 world championships, led by Thomas Ulsrud.

Olympic Bronze medallist Christof Schwaller leads Switzerland and 2009 World Junior Men's Champion Rasmus Stjerne skips Denmark.


Thomas Dufour (pictured centre) and Jiri Snitil, familiar names from previous Championships, skip France and the Czech Republic.

The men's A group is completed by two nations promoted from last year's B group - Russia, whose skip os Andrey Drozdov, and the Netherlands, led by Rob Vilain.

As well as Germany's Andrea Schöpp, the women's A group line-up includes Switzerland's Mirjam Ott, who will be looking to improve on last season's European silver medal and world silver medallist Eve Muirhead from Scotland.

Stina Viktorsson skips the team representing Sweden and follows in some illustrious footsteps, not least double Olympic champion Anette Norberg.

Liudmila Privivkova leads an experienced Russian team, four of whom won the European title in 2006.

Lene Nielsen returns to the international scene skipping this year's Danish team, while Ellen Vogt skips Finland and Linn Githmark is skip for Norway.

The two women's teams promoted from last year's B group are Latvia, making their nation's debut at this level, skipped by Evita Regza, and The Netherlands, whose skip Shari Leibbrandt-Demmon will play lead stones.

The B Group games will be played in the nearby town of Monthey at Verney Ice Rink.

The competing women's teams there will be Austria, Czech Republic, England, Estonia, England, Hungary, Italy and Wales.

They are joined by the two teams that topped the recent Group C qualifying event in Scotland – Ireland, and, making their debut in top international championship competition, Turkey.

The 16 men's B group teams will be split into two round-robin sections.

They are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, England, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Spain and Wales.

They are joined by the group C qualifiers Belarus and Slovakia.