Big-name curlers become assigned with recapturing Canada’s Olympic magnificence
Homan and Morris to join Gushue, Jones in Beijing
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Canada’s Olympic styling groups tend to be ultimately complete
Rocks start traveling in Beijing in 20 time, nonetheless it got until this morning for Canada to announce the last entryway. John Morris and Rachel Homan will defend the mixed increases gold medal that Morris claimed in 2018 with former teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.
Homan and Morris happened to be among the 16 groups that have been designed to vie for Canada’s place when you look at the Olympic tournament at national combined increases tests in Manitoba prior to the show had been cancelled finally thirty days. A Curling Canada-led panel spent the previous couple of days determining which duo to send to Asia, considering issue such as present mixed-doubles overall performance and international profits in traditional straightening. Another showy pairing within the operating ended up being reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There was additionally considerable lobbying from users exactly who invest themselves to blended increases and believe should rely.
But, ultimately, ability won out. If the goal is deliver the group utilizing the greatest threshold, then your option panel satisfied on the most obvious pick. Morris, 43, is actually an established Olympic musician exactly who obtained a men’s gold medal since the third for Kevin before you take the combined increases title with Lawes in 2018. The 32-year-old Homan is one of the most successful curlers ever before, with three Scotties games and a world tournament within her trophy instance. And theirs is no shotgun collaboration. Homan and Morris have actually played combined doubles with each other since 2015. Morris looked to Lawes four years ago after Homan acquired the Canadian ladies trials, which made the woman ineligible for Olympic combined doubles as a result of the Curling Canada plan prohibiting people from fighting much more than one curling event in one Games.
For Lawes, she’s going to Beijing too as a member of Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that claimed the Canadian women’s studies in won the men’s room. In Gushue and Jones, Canada need a former Olympic gold medallist at miss in associated with old-fashioned curling tournaments in Beijing.
Since we at long last learn people that’s playing for Canada, why don’t we take an instant consider the three Olympic styling tournaments and just what Canadian groups include dealing with:
First, let’s enjoyed the simplicity in the Olympic straightening tournaments. All three activities focus on a 10-team circular robin, while the top four advance towards the semifinals. The semifinal champions wager gold. The semifinal losers wager bronze. No webpage playoffs, no unusual triple-knockout brackets to discover. Simple.
In 2018, whenever mixed doubles produced their Olympic debut with an eight-team show, Morris and Lawes are a wrecking ball. After losing their particular opener to Norway, they reeled down eight direct victories to need silver, like a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland inside the final.
The silver-medal Swiss duo of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios were right back for Beijing. Therefore is the Norwegian pairing of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, have been given bronze after the guy regarding the Russian team that beat all of them were unsuccessful a doping test. Besides Homan, the actual only real some other big-name avoid active in the blended increases event is Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s room champ whom took gold at men’s planets last year.
A large storyline in Beijing should be Homan’s make an effort to receive by herself from a devastating detailing within the ladies’ show in 2018. Their professionals moved 4-5 and turned initial Canadian rink to overlook the playoffs in the Olympics.
The blended increases show will get underway Feb. 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris play their particular earliest video game that night at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. britain. The semifinals take the day of e could be the overnight at 7:05 a.m. ET.
Canada in addition flopped within this occasion in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s team shedding for the semifinals to ultimate champion John Shuster of this U.S. immediately after which obtaining distressed by Switzerland during the bronze-medal games. Before these video games, no Canadian styling staff have ever failed to victory a medal. In Pyeongchang, both standard teams did.
For Gushue, loads has changed since the guy acquired his Olympic gold medal in Italy 16 years ago. In the past, he was a talented though somewhat natural child which tossed fourth stones but leaned on legendary Russ Howard to name video games from the 2nd place (within the recognized Olympic documents, Howard was indexed since skip). Now Gushue is all adult — a 41-year-old parent of two that’s fully in command of their art. He grabbed three Brier titles from 2017-20 and a world title in ’17. Gushue got proper care of business because favourite within Canadian trials in e on the way to beating Jacobs when you look at the final.
Your competitors in Beijing should be difficult. It includes Shuster, Mouat and five-time industry champ Nik Edin of Sweden, that’s selecting his first Olympic silver after using bronze in 2014 and sterling silver in ’18. The competition opens up Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, whenever Canada face Denmark. The semis are early morning of e was Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.
Jennifer Jones try curling royalty — the winner of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time community winner and an Olympic gold medallist in 2014. But the woman triumph at Canadian trials is somewhat of a shock. At 47, Jones is regarded as past the woman prime, and most observers rated the lady behind Homan, Einarson and red-hot Tracy Fleury. Affirmed, Jones forgotten to of these within the circular robin. However when the chips were down she arrived through, trouncing Krista McCarville for the semis before taking the last from an undefeated Fleury in an additional end.
In Beijing, Jones might be against all three medallists from 2018: protecting champ Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, South Korea’s Kim Eun-jung (sterling silver) and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa (bronze). There’s also the champion of the latest two community championships — Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni — and 2013 globe champ Eve Muirhead of Great Britain, just who grabbed Olympic bronze in 2014.