# World Junior Curling Championships
The **World Junior Curling Championships** is an annual curling championship for junior men's and women's teams. Ten men's teams and ten women's compete, qualifying through their results at the previous year's championship or through the World Junior-B Curling Championships.[1](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/) The men's championship began in 1975 and the women's was added in 1988.[4](https://worldcurling.org/2026/02/wjcc-2026-preview/) The 2024 edition in Lohja, Finland, was the 49th men's championship and the 36th women's championship.[1](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/)
| Key fact | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| First editions | Men's 1975; women's 1988[4](https://worldcurling.org/2026/02/wjcc-2026-preview/) |
| Field size | Ten men's teams and ten women's teams[1](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/) |
| Format | Round robin, top four advance to semi-finals, then bronze and gold medal games[1](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/) |
| Reigning champions (2026) | Korea (women) and United States (men)[2](https://worldcurling.org/2026/03/wjcc2026-finals-recap/) |
## History
The championship grew out of a Canadian event, the Ontario Junior Masters Curling Championship, first held in 1968 and initially restricted to the [Greater Toronto Area](https://www.edgepedia.org/greater-toronto-area). The men's championship began in 1975.[4](https://worldcurling.org/2026/02/wjcc-2026-preview/)
The women's championship was added in 1988, thirteen years after the men's.[4](https://worldcurling.org/2026/02/wjcc-2026-preview/)
## Format and qualification
Each championship is a ten-team round robin in each gender. In the 2024 edition, round-robin play ran from Saturday 17 to Thursday 22 February, with the top four teams in the round-robin rankings qualifying for the semi-finals in both genders.[1](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/) In the 2026 championship the same sequencing applied, with the women's medal games in the morning session and the men's in the afternoon.[2](https://worldcurling.org/2026/03/wjcc2026-finals-recap/)
**Qualification** runs on a promotion-and-relegation basis. Teams qualify through their final rankings at the previous year's championship, or through the World Junior-B Curling Championships, a second-tier event in which the top three teams earn places in the main tournament while the bottom three teams from the previous main tournament are demoted to the B tournament.
The 2024 championship showed how the pathway works in practice. At the World Junior-B Championships in December 2023, teams secured places in the main tournament by finishing in the top three.[1](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/)
## By the numbers
The editions count marks the gender gap in the event's history: by the 2024 championship in Lohja the men had contested 49 editions and the women 36, a difference created by the women's event beginning only in 1988.[1](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/) Recent results show how competitive balance has shifted. At the 2025 championship, Korea finished fourth on a 5–4 record, Canada seventh at 4–5, the United States ninth at 3–6, and Germany tenth at 1–8.[3](https://results.worldcurling.org/Championship/Details/790)
## Recent championships: recent developments
The 2024 championship in Lohja, Finland, ran from 17 to 24 February.[1](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/) The 2026 championship, hosted in Taarnby, produced two notable results. In the women's gold medal game Korea beat Sweden 14–7, a back-to-back title win; Sweden had kept pressing, scoring one in the sixth end and two in the eighth, before Korea answered with three in the ninth to confirm the victory.[2](https://worldcurling.org/2026/03/wjcc2026-finals-recap/) In the men's final the United States beat the reigning champions Italy 8–6; the Americans led 5–3 at the fifth-end break, stole one in the sixth, scored two in the eighth to lead 8–4, and conceded nothing further after Italy's two in the ninth.[2](https://worldcurling.org/2026/03/wjcc2026-finals-recap/)
The United States men, the 2026 gold medallists, were skip Caden Hebert, third Jackson Bestland, second Benji Paral, lead Jack Wendtland, and alternate Daniel Laufer, coached by Michael Peplinski.[2](https://worldcurling.org/2026/03/wjcc2026-finals-recap/) Korea's 2026 success confirmed the country's rise in the women's junior game, following its fourth-place finish on a 5–4 record a year earlier.[3](https://results.worldcurling.org/Championship/Details/790)
## References
1. [World Junior Curling Championships to begin in Lohja, Finland - World Curling](https://worldcurling.org/2024/02/world-junior-curling-championships-to-begin-in-lohja-finland/)
2. [Korea and United States are World Junior 2026 Champions - World Curling](https://worldcurling.org/2026/03/wjcc2026-finals-recap/)
3. [World Junior Curling Championships 2025 - tournament details (World Curling results archive)](https://results.worldcurling.org/Championship/Details/790)
4. [20 teams set to compete for World Junior title in Taarnby, Denmark - World Curling, worldcurling.org](https://worldcurling.org/2026/02/wjcc-2026-preview/)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Sports, games, and recreation › Other team and ball sports › Racket and precision ball sports › Racket and precision ball sports › Precision-aim and throwing sports (bowling, darts, curling, boules) › Curling › Curling championships and events › World junior, senior, and youth curling championships*
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