Big-name curlers are assigned with recapturing Canada’s Olympic glory

Homan and Morris to participate Gushue, Jones in Beijing

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Canada’s Olympic curling teams tend to be eventually comprehensive

Rocks starting traveling in Beijing in 20 times, nonetheless it got until today for Canada to announce the best entryway. John Morris and Rachel Homan will protect the blended increases silver medal that Morris won in 2018 with besthookupwebsites.org/badoo-vs-tinder previous teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.

Homan and Morris were one of the 16 teams that were meant to participate for Canada’s place within the Olympic contest from the national mixed doubles tests in Manitoba prior to the celebration was terminated latest month. A Curling Canada-led panel spent the previous few weeks choosing which duo to deliver to Asia, weighing elements like recent mixed-doubles efficiency alongside worldwide profits in traditional styling. Another fancy pairing for the working was reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s room gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There clearly was furthermore considerable lobbying from participants just who devote themselves to blended increases and believe that should count.

But, overall, ability obtained completely. In the event the purpose is deliver the group because of the highest threshold, then the option panel satisfied in the most apparent pick. Morris, 43, are a proven Olympic performer whom acquired a men’s gold medal as 3rd for Kevin before you take the mixed doubles subject with Lawes in 2018. The 32-year-old Homan is one of the most successful curlers previously, with three Scotties brands and a world championship in her own trophy instance. And theirs is no shotgun cooperation. Homan and Morris has starred combined increases along since 2015. Morris looked to Lawes four in years past after Homan obtained the Canadian ladies’ studies, which generated the lady ineligible for Olympic blended increases due to the styling Canada plan prohibiting any person from contending in more than one curling occasion at the same video games.

In terms of Lawes, she’s maneuvering to Beijing also as a member of Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that acquired the Canadian ladies’ studies in obtained the men’s room. In Gushue and Jones, Canada has an old Olympic gold medallist at miss both in on the standard styling tournaments in Beijing.

Since we ultimately understand folks that’s playing for Canada, let us just take a simple check out the three Olympic straightening competitions and exactly what the Canadian teams include facing:

Very first, let’s value the ease of use associated with Olympic styling tournaments. All three events start off with a 10-team rounded robin, therefore the best four advance towards the semifinals. The semifinal champions wager silver. The semifinal losers wager bronze. No webpage playoffs, no odd triple-knockout brackets to decipher. Easy.

In 2018, whenever mixed increases produced their Olympic introduction with an eight-team show, Morris and Lawes happened to be a wrecking ball. After dropping their unique opener to Norway, they reeled down eight directly gains to grab gold, like a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland within 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, who were awarded bronze following people in the Russian group that defeat all of them were not successful a doping examination. Besides Homan, the actual only real other big-name avoid mixed up in mixed increases competition is Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s champ exactly who took sterling silver during the men’s room globes last year.

A large storyline in Beijing are Homan’s make an effort to get by herself from a devastating detailing when you look at the ladies occasion in 2018. This lady teams moved 4-5 and turned into the most important Canadian rink to overlook the playoffs from the Olympics.

The blended increases show becomes underway Feb. 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris perform her very first game that night at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. the uk. The semifinals are on the day of elizabeth may be the next day at 7:05 a.m. ET.

Canada also flopped contained in this celebration in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s professionals shedding from inside the semifinals to ultimate champion John Shuster from the U.S. and then getting distressed by Switzerland within the bronze-medal game. Before these video games, no Canadian curling group got actually failed to win a medal. In Pyeongchang, both old-fashioned groups performed.

For Gushue, a large number changed since the guy obtained his Olympic silver medal in Italy 16 years ago. Back then, he had been a gifted but still notably raw child exactly who put last rocks but leaned from the renowned Russ Howard to name video games from the second place (within the official Olympic data, Howard is indexed while the skip). Now Gushue is perhaps all grown-up – a 41-year-old daddy of two who’s totally in command of their create. The guy caught three Brier brands from 2017-20 and a global tournament in ’17. Gushue took care of company once the favourite within Canadian studies in e en route to beating Jacobs inside last.

The competition in Beijing will be difficult. It offers Shuster, Mouat and five-time world champion Nik Edin of Sweden, who’s interested in his first Olympic gold after taking bronze in 2014 and gold in ’18. The contest opens up Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, when Canada deals with Denmark. The semis will be the early morning of e is actually Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.

Jennifer Jones are curling royalty – the champ of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time business winner and an Olympic silver medallist in 2014. But her victory during the Canadian tests got somewhat of a shock. At 47, Jones was regarded as being past the woman prime, & most observers ranked the woman behind Homan, Einarson and red-hot Tracy Fleury. Sure-enough, Jones destroyed to all the of them when you look at the circular robin. However when the potato chips were down she arrived through, trouncing Krista McCarville from inside the semis before taking the last from an undefeated Fleury in a supplementary end.

In Beijing, Jones will likely be against 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 the winner with the last two globe titles – Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni – and 2013 industry champ Eve Muirhead of Great Britain, whom got Olympic bronze in 2014.