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World Junior Curling Championships

The World Junior Curling Championships are an annual curling bonspiel featuring the world's best curlers who are 21 years old or younger. The competitions for both men and women occur at the same venue. The men's tournament has occurred since 1975 and the women's since 1988. Since curling became an Olympic sport in 1998, the World Junior Curling Championship of the year preceding the Olympic Games have been held at the site of the curling tournament for the upcoming Games.

The event had its origins with the Ontario Junior Masters Curling Championship, which began in 1968 and, at first, mostly consisted of teams in the Greater Toronto Area. Eventually the event was renamed to the International Junior Masters Bonspiel and began attracting teams from other countries. In 1973, the tournament was sponsored by Uniroyal, and was renamed the Uniroyal International Junior Curling Championship. It became the World Junior Curling Championship in 1974, before being officially sanctioned in 1975. The tournament was held every year at the East York Curling Club before being sanctioned. Uniroyal remained the event's sponsor until 1990.

Qualification

Teams qualify to participate in the World Junior Curling Championships through final rankings at the previous year's championships or through the World Junior B Curling Championships, which includes any teams that did not already qualify for the championships via the previous year's rankings. The top three teams of this tournament qualify for the main tournament, and the bottom three teams from the main tournament are then demoted to the B tournament. This type of tournament also existed from 2001 to 2004, where two teams were awarded qualification spots through the B tournament instead of three.

Previously, teams that did not qualify through rankings qualified through regional qualifiers. In the Europe Zone, teams participated in the European Junior Curling Challenge, in which the winner advances to the World Championships. In the Pacific Zone, teams participated in the Pacific-Asia Junior Curling Championships, in which the winner advances to the World Championships.