VIERUMAKI, FINLAND – Canada's duo of Dean Ross and Susan O'Connor recovered from a bout of stomach flu to outlast Slovakia 12-11 at the first World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship.

Canada lost their first game of the competition 10-6 to Italy on Monday evening, with Ross suffering from a flu bug that has swept through the teams. It has also affected athletes at the neighboring World Seniors Championships.

Ross shrugged off his ailment and teamed with O'Connor for a wild match against Slovakia's Stefan Turna and Barbora Vojtusova. The Canadians broke open a 3-2 match by scoring four in the third end for a 7-2 lead, but the Slovaks roared right back with four of thir own in the fifth.

Canada added four more points over the next two ends, but ran into taekout trouble in the seventh end, where Slovakia scored five to tie the game. In the eighth and final frame, O'Connor missed a peel but the Slovaks couldn't capitalize, and Ross confirmed the winning point without having to throw his last rock.

O'Connor was shaking her head over the five-ender after the match.

"That's very easy to do when you take out your own stones. Twice," said O'Connor.

"From a curler's point of view, it's totally frustrating to give them a free draw for five," said Ross. "But there's going to be five rocks in play by the time you can hit anything for the first time. You've just got to let it go and prepare for the next end, but that's hard too. She's at the other end and I don't have any teammates to pump me up.

"It's an exciting format, and from a fan's view, it's great. The ends go by quickly and there's lots to watch."

Ross is such a fan of the new curling discipline that he dismissed one aspect of the Brier, the famous Canadian curling championship, in comparison.

"When we're not playing I've been coming to watch, and in one respect I enjoy watching this more than the Brier," said Ross.

"I've been to a lot of Briers and it's easy to watch four sheets at once there, but it's really hard to watch four sheets of ice here. There's so much going on."

Mixed Doubles features two teammates delivering five stones alternating with their opponents. The player throwing first also throws last, with the teammate delivering stones two, three, and four. Athletes must sweep their own stones and there are two additional stones placed into play at the start of each end.

Canada had previously defeated England 11-3, Estonia 10-3 and Sweden by a 7-5 count to start the week. At 4-1 and with final round-robin matches scheduled for Wednesday against Hungary and Japan, they lead their pool with five teams just a game behind.

Many observers are describing Switzerland as the team to beat. Toni Mueller, who skipped the Swiss men into the playoffs at December's Le Gruyère European Championships, has teamed with Zurich women's skip Irene Schori to build an impressive 5-0 record in their pool.

"I think they know how to throw on this ice," said Canadian coach Paul Webster. "They're not jumping up to sweep as much as others, and they're still getting those hits and rolls. That's tough to do with no sweeping, and they're obviously tuned in to the ice really well."

Following Switzerland are Finland and China at 4-1, with New Zealand at 3-2. The United States pairing of Nate and Jamie Haskell was forced to miss their fourth-round match due to the flu bug, and returned to the ice Tuesday. They lost 8-7 to China to fall to 2-3 and were scheduled to battle the Swiss Tuesday night. 

In other Tuesday fifth-round action, Norway's Tormod Andreasson and Linn Githmark thumped France's Lionel Rioux and Helene Grieshaber 8-2 to lead their pool at 4-1, while the Czech Republic edged Latvia 6-5, Russia beat back a late surge from Australia to win 7-6 and Scotland came back to defeat Spain 8-5.

The Finnish Curling Association is posting live results online of both Championships. The World Mixed Doubles results will be available at: curling.fi/en/competitions/leagues/2688 and the World Seniors can be viewed at: curling.fi/en/competitions/leagues/2687

In addition, results are mirrored on the World Curling Federation website at: results.worldcurling.org

The host websites for the Championships are: wmdcc2008.com (World Mixed Doubles) and: www.wscc2008.com (World Seniors).