Big-name curlers become tasked with recapturing Canada’s Olympic glory

Homan and Morris to join Gushue, Jones in Beijing

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Canada’s Olympic curling teams is at long last complete

Rocks start traveling in Beijing in 20 days, it took until today for Canada to mention its last entry. John Morris and Rachel Homan will defend the blended increases silver medal that Morris won in 2018 with former teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.

Homan and Morris happened to be among the 16 groups which were supposed to vie for Canada’s place from inside the Olympic contest on nationwide blended increases trials in Manitoba ahead of the celebration had been terminated last thirty days. A Curling Canada-led committee invested the previous few months deciding which duo to send to Asia, evaluating factors such as current mixed-doubles overall performance combined with intercontinental achievement in standard styling. Another fancy pairing inside the working was reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There was also considerable lobbying from people just who spend by themselves to combined doubles and think that should depend.

But, in conclusion, ability claimed completely. In the event the intent is always to submit the group together with the greatest ceiling, then your option committee settled in the biggest choose. Morris, 43, try an established Olympic musician just who acquired a men’s silver medal once the next for Kevin before you take the mixed increases subject with Lawes in 2018. The 32-year-old Homan is one of the most winning curlers actually, with three Scotties brands and a global championship in her own trophy instance. And theirs isn’t any shotgun relationship. Homan and Morris need played blended increases along since 2015. Morris considered Lawes four in years past after Homan won the Canadian women’s tests, which made the woman ineligible for Olympic mixed increases because of the styling Canada policy prohibiting any person from contending much more than one curling show at the same Games.

As for Lawes, she actually is going to Beijing too as a part with the Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that won the Canadian ladies tests in won the men’s. In Gushue and Jones, Canada may have an old Olympic silver medallist at avoid in of traditional styling tournaments in Beijing.

Now that we ultimately see anyone who is playing for Canada, why don’t we take an easy look at the three Olympic straightening competitions and just what Canadian groups tend to be dealing with:

Initially, let us value the user friendliness for the Olympic straightening competitions. All three occasions focus on a 10-team round robin, additionally the best four advance with the semifinals. The semifinal winners wager gold. The semifinal losers wager bronze. No web page playoffs, no strange triple-knockout brackets to decipher. Simple.

In 2018, when combined increases generated the Olympic debut with an eight-team celebration, Morris and Lawes are a wrecking baseball. After dropping their particular opener to Norway, they reeled off eight direct gains to capture gold, including a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland inside the final.

The silver-medal Swiss duo of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios is back for Beijing. Therefore will be the Norwegian pairing of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, who have been given bronze following the guy from the Russian employees that overcome all of them hit a brick wall a doping test. Besides Homan, truly the only different big-name miss active in the mixed doubles competition is Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s room champ who grabbed gold in the men’s planets this past year.

A big storyline in Beijing shall be Homan’s try to redeem by herself from a disastrous displaying during the women’s occasion in 2018. The girl personnel went 4-5 and turned into the most important Canadian rink to overlook the playoffs at Olympics.

The mixed increases event becomes underway Feb. bumble or tinder 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris perform their particular basic online game that evening at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. Great Britain. The semifinals are on the day of e is the following day at 7:05 a.m. ET.

Canada also flopped contained in this show in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s personnel dropping during the semifinals to ultimate champ John Shuster of the U.S. then acquiring distressed by Switzerland in the bronze-medal online game. Before these video games, no Canadian curling personnel had actually ever failed to victory a medal. In Pyeongchang, both conventional groups performed.

For Gushue, much changed since the guy won his Olympic gold medal in Italy 16 in years past. In the past, he was a skilled but still rather natural youngster exactly who threw next rocks but leaned on the renowned Russ Howard to contact video games from second place (in the formal Olympic files, Howard is actually listed as the avoid). Now Gushue is all developed – a 41-year-old father of two that’s completely in command of their art. The guy grabbed three Brier titles from 2017-20 and some sort of title in ’17. Gushue got care of business due to the fact favorite at the Canadian trials in elizabeth on the way to beating Jacobs in last.

Your competition in Beijing will likely be difficult. It includes Shuster, Mouat and five-time community champion Nik Edin of Sweden, that’s seeking his first Olympic silver after having bronze in 2014 and sterling silver in ’18. The contest opens Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, when Canada deals with Denmark. The semis include day of e was Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.

Jennifer Jones is curling royalty – the winner of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time industry champ and an Olympic gold medallist in 2014. But this lady triumph on Canadian studies was actually somewhat of a shock. At 47, Jones got considered to be past the lady prime, & most observers rated their behind Homan, Einarson and the red-hot Tracy Fleury. Affirmed, Jones shed to ones inside round robin. But once the chips comprise down she arrived through, trouncing Krista McCarville from inside the semis before stealing the last from an undefeated Fleury in an additional end.

In Beijing, Jones are going to be facing all three medallists from 2018: protecting champ Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, Southern Korea’s Kim Eun-jung (gold) and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa (bronze). There’s also the champ on the last two world championships – Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni – and 2013 globe champ Eve Muirhead of Great Britain, exactly who grabbed Olympic bronze in 2014.