Japan booked their place at Beijing 2022 with an 8-5 win over South Korea ©WCF/Celine Stucki

Japan and Italy secured spots in the women's and men's curling tournaments at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics after respective wins in the first round of playoffs at the World Curling Federation (WCF) Olympic Qualification Event, taking place in Leeuwarden in The Netherlands.

All teams playing today had the first of two opportunities to book their spots at the Games, with the winner confirming theirs and the loser playing again tomorrow.

Satsuki Fujisawa's Japanese rink - also consisting of Chinami Yoshida, Yumi Suzuki and Yurika Yoshida - took on the Olympic bronze medallists from Pyeongchang 2018, Kim Eun-jung's South Korea.

Kim led a rink colloquially known as the "Garlic Girls", who hoped to return for more Olympic glory at Beijing 2022, joined on the ice by Kim Kyeong-ae, Kim Cho-hi and Kim Seon-yeong.

Japan had let the automatic position slip in the last round-robin game by losing to Turkey, meaning Eve Muirhead's Scotland took top spot.

They would not make the same mistake twice, convincingly beating South Korea 8-5.

The teams were not separated by anything until the fifth end when Japan scored two with the hammer to go 5-3 up.

After blanking the sixth, Fujisawa stole for two as well, and stole for one more in the eighth, leaving Kim's team with a mountain to climb.

Despite scoring two in the ninth, South Korea needed a colossal steal of three in the final end to tie, but eventually conceded.

South Korea takes on Santa Blumberga-Berzina's Latvia for the final qualification spot in the women's competition.

A tighter game took place between Joël Retornaz's Italy and Lukáš Klíma's Czech Republic, but it was Italy who prevailed by a 6-5 score.

Retornaz, along with Amos Mosaner, Sebastiano Arman and Simone Gonin, were cruising towards victory early on by scoring three with the hammer and were able to keep the Czech team - also consisting of Mark Cernovsky, Radek Bohac and Jiri Candra - at bay despite their opponents clawing themselves back in the fourth end with a score of two.

The Italians always had the Czechs at arm's length and despite the scoreline, were fairly comfortable with the hammer in the last end.

Czech Republic are now set to face Denmark in the men's second playoff for the last place at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in curling.