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VENTSPILS, Latvia - Surprise at the 2012 IIHF Ice Hockey Women's World Championship Division I Group A: The last-seeded Czechs won the tournament and will play with the elite nations for the first time ever next year in Ottawa.

"I haven't really realized what we have achieved here yet, but I think this will come later," said Radka Lhotska, who was selected best goalkeeper of the tournament after performing a 96.15 save percentage in five games.

"I feel great, but the main thing is that we won. We have all battled like a team."

The Czechs had just come back from the third to the second tier this year, but they have already been playing five years in the top division with their women's U18 team including three semi-final appearances and one bronze medal.

About half of the senior team included young players with U18 experiences. By developing players and becoming more active through new IIHF initiatives like the Ambassador and Mentor Program and the Women's High-Performance Camp, the Czechs were ready to harvest the fruits of their work in the week-long tournament in Ventspils.

For the Czechs, who participate in the Women's World Championship program since 1999, it will be the first time the women's national team will play in the top division at the 2013 IIHF Ice Hockey Women's World Championship in Ottawa, Canada. The went up two levels within just two years, while Kazakhstan went the other way and will be relegated after losing all games.

"It's amazing. We just came up from one level below," 19-year-old forward Lucie Povova of the Northeastern University said. "We wanted to win, but we didn't expect to get to the highest division that fast."

"I think we're going to get much more respect from the people because in the Czech Republic no one really recognizes women's hockey and even in the States or in Canada people are going to recognize us. They're playing well, but we're up there too now. It's really amazing."

The event in Ventspils was one of the most evenly matched IIHF tournaments of the season and the quality of the games implied that the gap between the top division and the second tier has become smaller.

Latvia was the surprise leader of the first two days, but the hosts ran out of energy. Japan was leading the standings after the third day of play before the Czechs took over on day four.

On the last day four teams were still in the race for promotion with the Czechs in pole position before the troika of Norway, Japan and Austria that was ready to capitalize on a possible Czech slip-up on the last day. But it didn't happen.

Japan kept its chances alive in the afternoon by defeating Kazakhstan 5-0. The Japanese avenged for the loss at the 2011 Asian Winter Games where Kazakhstan won in a shootout on home ice in Almaty.

After an evenly matched first period the Japanese took off in the middle part of the game. Chiho Osawa opened the scoring on a breakaway at 2:58 and Saki Shimozawa doubled the gap midway through the period.

The Kazakhs, who mostly used two or three lines throughout the tournament, seemed to run out of gas. Hanae Kubo, Tomoe Homma and Kanae Aoki added three more goals in the third period, but after the later games only the bronze medals were left for the Japanese.

The Norwegians, who have seven players in Sweden and two at the University of North Dakota, also fulfilled their task on the last day, defeating host Latvia 6-0.

Already the first period gave a clear indication where the game would be heading to. The Norwegians had 14 shots on goal and allowed only one Latvian shot. Line Bialik

1.4.2012 Pavel Krček