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

Homan and Morris to become listed on Gushue, Jones in Beijing

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Canada’s Olympic curling teams are eventually complete

Stones starting flying in Beijing in 20 weeks, but it grabbed until today for Canada to announce its final entry. John Morris and Rachel Homan will protect the combined increases gold medal that Morris claimed in 2018 with former teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.

Homan and Morris happened to be one of the 16 groups which were likely to participate for Canada’s spot into the Olympic competition during the nationwide blended doubles tests in Manitoba prior to the event was terminated final month. A Curling Canada-led panel invested the previous few weeks deciding which duo to send to China, considering issue including latest mixed-doubles abilities along side international achievement in standard curling. Another showy pairing when you look at the working was reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There was clearly furthermore substantial lobbying from users whom dedicate by themselves to combined increases and genuinely believe that should depend.

But, ultimately, talent obtained completely. In the event the aim is always to deliver the group using the finest ceiling, then your choice committee established throughout the most apparent choose. Morris, 43, are a proven Olympic musician which won a men’s gold medal due to the fact third for Kevin before taking the mixed doubles title with Lawes in 2018. The 32-year-old Homan the most winning curlers actually, with three Scotties brands and a global tournament in her own trophy instance. And theirs isn’t any shotgun relationship. Homan and Morris has played mixed increases collectively since 2015. Morris turned to Lawes four in years past after Homan won the Canadian women’s tests, which made their ineligible for Olympic mixed doubles as a result of the styling Canada rules prohibiting people from fighting in more than one curling occasion at the same Games.

For Lawes, she actually is going to Beijing too as an associate on the Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that claimed the Canadian ladies trials in won the men’s. In Gushue and Jones, Canada has a former Olympic silver medallist at skip in both of standard straightening competitions in Beijing.

Given that we at long last discover anyone that’s playing for Canada, why don’t we take a quick glance at the three Olympic styling tournaments and what the Canadian teams become dealing with:

Initially, why don’t we appreciate the ease associated with Olympic styling tournaments. All three events start with a 10-team round robin, together with best four advance toward semifinals. The semifinal champions wager gold. The semifinal losers wager bronze. No web page playoffs, no strange triple-knockout brackets to understand. Effortless.

In 2018, when combined doubles produced the Olympic introduction with an eight-team show, Morris and Lawes comprise a wrecking basketball. After shedding their opener to Norway, they reeled down eight straight wins to bring gold, including a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland inside last.

The silver-medal Swiss duo of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios become straight back for Beijing. Therefore will be the Norwegian pairing of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, who had been given bronze after the guy in the Russian staff that overcome all of them were unsuccessful a doping test. Besides Homan, truly the only various other big-name avoid involved in the combined increases competition is excellent Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s champ whom took sterling silver within men’s room worlds this past year.

A big storyline in Beijing might be Homan’s attempt to get by herself from a devastating exhibiting for the women’s show in 2018. The girl employees moved 4-5 and became the first Canadian rink to miss the playoffs in the Olympics.

The mixed doubles show becomes underway Feb. 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris play their own earliest video game that evening 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 contained in this occasion in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s staff dropping in the semifinals to eventual champion John Shuster associated with U.S. then getting distressed by bumble vs okcupid prices Switzerland inside the bronze-medal games. Before these video games, no Canadian curling group have previously did not victory a medal. In Pyeongchang, both conventional groups performed.

For Gushue, alot changed since he acquired his Olympic silver medal in Italy 16 years ago. In the past, he was a talented but still significantly raw child which threw last rocks but leaned from the legendary Russ Howard to call video games from the next situation (during the formal Olympic data, Howard try listed as the skip). Today Gushue is adult – a 41-year-old grandfather of two that’s fully in order of their create. He seized three Brier titles from 2017-20 and a global tournament in ’17. Gushue took proper care of business since preferred in the Canadian trials in age on the way to defeating Jacobs inside last.

Your competition in Beijing is tough. It provides Shuster, Mouat and five-time community champion Nik Edin of Sweden, that’s in search of 1st Olympic silver after taking bronze in 2014 and sterling silver in ’18. The contest opens up Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, when Canada deals with Denmark. The semis are the morning of e was Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.

Jennifer Jones is actually curling royalty – the champ of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time globe champion and an Olympic gold medallist in 2014. But the lady triumph within Canadian studies was a bit of a shock. At 47, Jones had been regarded as past the woman prime, and a lot of observers ranked the girl behind Homan, Einarson as well as the red-hot Tracy Fleury. Sure enough, Jones lost to all or any ones during the round robin. Nevertheless when the potato chips are down she emerged through, trouncing Krista McCarville into the semis before taking the ultimate from an undefeated Fleury in an extra conclusion.

In Beijing, Jones shall be against 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 champion from the finally two community championships – Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni – and 2013 business champ Eve Muirhead of Great Britain, just who grabbed Olympic bronze in 2014.