FÜSSEN, GERMANY – Olympic and “triple-crown” winner Anette Norberg is taking aim at another gold medal.

One year after missing the Le Gruyère European Curling Championships, Sweden’s golden girls will return to the 2007 edition to try and win their sixth European title in seven years, when play begins on Saturday.

“For sure, we are going for the gold,” said the tall blonde skip.

“Nothing else will do.”

Norberg won five consecutive Euro titles up to 2005, and went on to capture the 2006 Olympic championship and the 2006 World Championship. Last season, the team didn’t qualify for the Euros, and finished out of the playoffs oat the Women’s Worlds in Aomori, Japan.

“We are really looking forward to being back at the Europeans,” said Norberg.

“After having a less successful Worlds than we hoped for, we are very focused on a great result in Füssen.”

Norberg’s main challenges are expected to come from Switzerland and Scotland, while last year’s unexpected champions also return to defend their title.

Switzerland’s Mirjam Ott lost the 2006 Olympic final to the Sweden’s Norberg. Ott has failed to qualify for the last two Women’s World Championships but is making her third straight appearance at the Europeans, and won bronze at Basel in 2006.

With the retirement of 2002 Olympic champion Rhona Martin, Kelly Wood is now the undisputed champion of Scottish women’s curling. Her pairing with 2002 World Champion skip Jackie Lockhart delivered a World bronze medal last March in Aomori, and Wood is expected to deliver more podium finishes in 2007-08.

Russia’s young women, skipped by Moscow’s Ludmila Privivkova, shocked the curling world a year ago by winning the 2006 Le Gruyere title. The former world junior champion then struggled at the Worlds, meaning all eyes will be them as they enter unfamiliar territory in Füssen – as defending champions.

Other teams in the women’s A division include Italy’s Diana Gaspari, the surprise silver medallist last year; Germany’s Andrea Schoepp, a multiple former champion now competing on home ice; Denmark’s surprise qualifier Lene Nielsen, Austria’s sister duo of Claudia and Karina Toth, last year’s B-pool champions; Katerina Urbanova of the Czech Republic and Finland’s Anne Malmi.

55 teams from 32 countries -- 30 men’s squads and 22 women’s teams -- will compete in two divisions, A and B, at both the Bundesleistungszentrum Arena and the adjacent Bundesstützpunkt Arena.

In addition to gold, silver and bronze-medal honours, the A division rewards the top eight men’s and women’s finishers with a berth in the World Curling Championships in March and April 2008. The B division, which includes a men’s team from Iceland in their debut appearance, awards the top men’s and women's team the chance to challenge the eighth-place A finishers for the final world berth.

Points awarded at the Worlds qualify their nations for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

In partnership with the pan-European multilingual sports TV channel Eurosport, Eurosport.com and CurlTV.com, curling fans from around the world will be able to watch a record number of hours of coverage, beginning on December 1 and ending with the men’s and women’s championship finals on December 8.

For the first time, live webstreamed game coverage will be available on Eurosport.com and CurlTV.com, in addition to the matches broadcast on the Eurosport television channel.

World Curling Federation will provide daily coverage updates from Le Gruyère European Curling Championships 2007 to working sport media in text, still image and video-highlight formats. In addition to video highlight footage, World Curling Television (WCTV) can provide the live game coverage feed to interested broadcasters.

For more information including team lineups, please visit the Le Gruyère European Curling Championships 2007 website at: www.ecc2007.de

To view the World Curling Rankings and other curling information, please visit the World Curling Federation website at: www.worldcurling.org