Big-name curlers tend to be assigned with recapturing Canada’s Olympic glory

Homan and Morris to join Gushue, Jones in Beijing

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Canada’s Olympic straightening teams are eventually comprehensive

Stones start traveling in Beijing in 20 weeks, however it took until this morning for Canada to mention their best entry. John Morris and Rachel Homan will safeguard the combined increases silver medal that Morris claimed in 2018 with previous teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.

Homan and Morris were among the list of 16 teams which were designed to contend for Canada’s spot from inside the Olympic competition from the nationwide combined increases trials in Manitoba ahead of the event got cancelled finally period. A Curling Canada-led committee spent the last few months determining which duo to send to China, considering points such as present mixed-doubles abilities along side international success in conventional styling. Another flashy pairing within the operating had been reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s room gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There seemed to be additionally considerable lobbying from users which devote on their own to blended doubles and believe that should count.

But, ultimately, ability claimed around. In the event the objective is always to send the team because of the greatest ceiling, then range panel established throughout the most obvious pick. Morris, 43, is actually a proven Olympic musician exactly who acquired a men’s gold medal while the third for Kevin before you take the combined increases concept with Lawes in 2018. The 32-year-old Homan the most effective curlers actually ever, with three Scotties games and a world title within her trophy case. And theirs is not any shotgun partnership. Homan and Morris have actually starred combined doubles together since 2015. Morris considered Lawes four years ago after Homan obtained the Canadian ladies studies, which produced their ineligible for Olympic blended increases considering the Curling Canada plan prohibiting people from competing much more than one curling show at the same Games.

For Lawes, she actually is going to Beijing as well as a part from the Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that won the Canadian women’s trials in won the men’s. In Gushue and Jones, Canada are going to have a former Olympic silver medallist at skip in with the traditional straightening tournaments in Beijing.

Given that we eventually understand everyone who’s playing for Canada, why don’t we bring a fast consider the three Olympic straightening tournaments and what the Canadian teams are dealing with:

1st, why don’t we value the ease for the Olympic styling competitions. All three activities start with a 10-team circular robin, and also the best four advance for the semifinals. The semifinal winners wager gold. The semifinal losers wager bronze. No Page playoffs, no unusual triple-knockout brackets to understand. Effortless.

In 2018, whenever blended increases made their Olympic first with an eight-team show, Morris and Lawes were a wrecking ball. After losing their particular opener to Norway, they reeled off eight directly gains to bring gold, like a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland in final.

The silver-medal Swiss duo of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios are straight back for Beijing. So may be the Norwegian pairing of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, who had been awarded bronze after the people regarding Russian professionals that beat them were not successful a doping examination. Besides Homan, really the only different big-name skip active in the mixed increases event is Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s champ exactly who got sterling silver during the men’s room planets this past year.

A huge storyline in Beijing will likely be Homan’s try to receive herself from a devastating detailing from inside the ladies’ show in 2018. The girl employees went 4-5 and turned initial Canadian rink to overlook the playoffs at Olympics.

The blended increases show will get underway Feb. 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris bring their own first video game that nights at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. the uk. The semifinals are on the morning of e may be the following day at 7:05 a.m. ET.

Canada additionally flopped in this show in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s team dropping within the semifinals to eventual champ John Shuster associated with U.S. after which acquiring disturb by Switzerland within the bronze-medal video game. Before these video games, no Canadian curling employees got ever before failed to winnings a medal. In Pyeongchang, both standard teams performed.

For Gushue, loads changed since he claimed his Olympic gold medal in Italy 16 years back. In the past, he was a talented but still somewhat raw child just who put fourth rocks but leaned regarding the celebrated Russ Howard to name games from next situation (for the official Olympic registers, Howard are detailed because avoid). Today Gushue is all developed – a 41-year-old grandfather of two who’s totally in command of his create. The guy captured three Brier titles from 2017-20 and a world tournament in ’17. Gushue got care of companies just like the favourite within Canadian trials in age on the way to defeating Jacobs in final.

Your competition in Beijing should be difficult. It provides Shuster, Mouat and five-time world champ Nik Edin of Sweden, that is shopping for his first Olympic gold after getting bronze in 2014 and gold in ’18. The contest opens Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, whenever Canada faces Denmark. The semis are the early morning of age was Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.

Jennifer Jones are curling royalty – the winner of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time business champion and hinge vs bumble an Olympic gold medallist in 2014. But the lady victory during the Canadian tests is somewhat of a surprise. At 47, Jones ended up being regarded as being past their perfect, and a lot of perceiver rated the woman behind Homan, Einarson as well as the red-hot Tracy Fleury. Affirmed, Jones missing to any or all of these inside the circular robin. Nevertheless when the potato chips were down she emerged through, trouncing Krista McCarville when you look at the semis before stealing the last from an undefeated Fleury in an additional end.

In Beijing, Jones will be facing all three medallists from 2018: protecting champ Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, South Korea’s Kim Eun-jung (silver) and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa (bronze). There is also the winner regarding the finally two community championships – Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni – and 2013 community champ Eve Muirhead of Great Britain, which got Olympic bronze in 2014.