Big-name curlers become tasked with recapturing Canada’s Olympic magnificence
Homan and Morris to join Gushue, Jones in Beijing
This will be an excerpt from Buzzer, that will be CBC Sports’ daily email newsletter. Remain up to speed on what’s going on in recreations by subscribing here.
Canada’s Olympic styling groups include eventually total
Rocks begin flying in Beijing in 20 period, nonetheless it grabbed until this morning for Canada to declare their final entry. John Morris and Rachel Homan will guard the blended doubles silver medal that Morris won in 2018 with previous teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.
Homan and Morris happened to be one of the 16 groups that have been designed to compete for Canada’s place within the Olympic contest at the national mixed doubles studies in Manitoba ahead of the show ended up being cancelled last period. A Curling Canada-led committee spent the last few days determining which duo to deliver to Asia, evaluating facets such as present mixed-doubles performance along side worldwide triumph in standard styling. Another showy pairing from inside the operating had been reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s room gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There seemed to be in addition substantial lobbying from players whom commit by themselves to mixed doubles and genuinely believe that should depend.
But, in conclusion, skill won
For Lawes, she is maneuvering to Beijing as well as a member of the Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that claimed the Canadian ladies studies in obtained the men’s. In Gushue and Jones, Canada have an old Olympic gold medallist at skip in both in the conventional styling competitions in Beijing.
Since we at long last know everyone that is playing for Canada, why don’t we just take a simple check out the three Olympic styling competitions and precisely what the Canadian teams were dealing with:
Initially, why don’t we value the user friendliness of the Olympic styling competitions. All three occasions start off with a 10-team round robin, and also the best four advance to your semifinals. The semifinal champions wager gold. The semifinal losers play for bronze. No webpage playoffs, no strange triple-knockout brackets to understand. Effortless.
In 2018, when combined doubles made its Olympic first with an eight-team celebration, Morris and Lawes were a wrecking baseball. After losing their own opener to Norway, they reeled down eight directly wins to get silver, such as a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland for the final.
The silver-medal Swiss duo of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios include back for Beijing. So could be the Norwegian pairing of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, have been given bronze following the man in the Russian team that beat all of them were unsuccessful a doping examination. Besides Homan, truly the only some other big-name avoid involved in the blended increases event is very good Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s champ just who grabbed gold at the men’s room planets last year.
A huge storyline in Beijing is Homan’s try to redeem by herself from a devastating detailing when you look at the ladies’ show in 2018. This lady employees moved 4-5 and became the first Canadian rink to miss the playoffs at Olympics.
The blended increases celebration becomes underway Feb. 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris play their unique earliest video game that night at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. britain. The semifinals take the morning of age is the following day at 7:05 a.m. ET.
Canada furthermore flopped contained in this event in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s personnel dropping into the semifinals to eventual champion John Shuster of this U.S. and then acquiring distressed by Switzerland in the bronze-medal video game. Before these Games, no Canadian styling staff got ever didn’t win a medal. In Pyeongchang, both old-fashioned groups performed.
For Gushue, a large amount changed since the guy claimed their Olympic silver medal in Italy 16 in years past. Back then, he had been a talented yet still rather natural child exactly who tossed 4th rocks but leaned regarding the renowned Russ Howard to contact games from next place (inside recognized Olympic data, Howard are indexed since the miss). Now Gushue is adult – a 41-year-old grandfather of two who’s completely in demand of their craft. He captured three Brier brands from 2017-20 and a global tournament in ’17. Gushue got proper care of businesses because the favourite on Canadian tests in e on the way to beating Jacobs when you look at the best.
Your competitors in Beijing are going to be tough. It offers Shuster, Mouat and five-time globe winner Nik Edin of Sweden, that’s selecting his first Olympic gold after taking bronze in 2014 and sterling silver in ’18. The competition opens up Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, when Canada face Denmark. The semis would be the morning of e was Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.
Jennifer Jones try curling royalty – the champ of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time business winner and an Olympic silver medallist in 2014. But the woman success during the Canadian trials is a bit of a shock. At 47, Jones is considered to be past the woman finest, and a lot of perceiver rated her behind Homan, Einarson 
in addition to red-hot Tracy Fleury. As expected, Jones destroyed to all ones into the round robin. But when the potato chips comprise down she emerged through, trouncing Krista McCarville during the semis before taking the final from an undefeated Fleury in an additional end.
In Beijing, Jones can be up against all three medallists from 2018: defending champ Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, southern area Korea’s Kim Eun-jung (silver) and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa (bronze). Additionally, there is the champion associated with the final two globe championships – Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni – and 2013 industry champ Eve Muirhead of Great Britain, who took Olympic bronze in 2014.