On This Day in Olympic Curling History: Feb 17

BEIJING 2022

Canada’s Jennifer Jones finished the round robin tied with Great Britain and Japan at 5-4, behind Switzerland (8-1) and defending champs Sweden (7-2).

However, their were no tiebreakers… and since the who-beat-whom didn’t add up, Draw Shot Challenge (DSC) rankings were used to determine the last two playoff spots.

GBR and JPN were in… and CAN was out. Cue the uproar from the North American time zone.

(Will something similar happen in Cortina d’Ampezzo? Stay tuned.)

“I’m never going to be of the opinion that the draw shot challenge should be how playoff teams are decided,” said Jones. “I’ve been pretty vocal about it before this. It’s too bad that it happened but we knew where we were at.

“We knew we had to win last night to control our fate, and we lost.”

On the men’s side, GBR’s Mouat won the Olympic men’s round robin at 8-1, Niklas Edin’s Swedish crew came second at 7-2, canada’s Brad Gushue third at 5-4 and John Shuster’s United States claimed the fourth and final berth.

We cued up the semifinals.

Same for the women’s semis.

And here were the results… Gushue lost to Edin and Shuster fell to Mouat – story with amazing photos here – and Eve Muirhead defeated Anna Hasselborg with Japan upsetting Switzerland – also here, with great imagery.

TORINO 2006

Joel Retornaz was really something, eh?

The crowds loved him. Fashionable with the gelled hair and funky frames.

On the ice, the U.S. CurlGirls were out but the American men were very much in.

As for the younger Brad Gushue and Co., they lost to U-15, the Flying Finn – Markku Uusipaavalniemi – who remarkably shot only 59% (zero on two draws and just 65% on 18 hits) compared to Gushue's 75%. 

Peja Lindholm’s Sweden were crushed by Great Britain and fell to eight place.

Wild scenes.

SOCHI 2014

They closed in on the men’s playoffs, with Sweden’s Niklas Edin (8-1), Canada’s Brad Jacobs (7-2) and China’s Liu Rui (7-2) qualifying outright.

The next day would feature  tiebreaker between GBR (David Murdoch) and Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud.

The latter’s team were resplendent in this amazing getup earlier in the week.

We’ve got all the feels today, we must admit, since we saw the return of The Pants to Olympic competition in Cortina.

This was also an amazing sight, a little over 12 years ago now.

On the women’s Sochi side, unbeaten Canada (Jennifer Jones, 9-0) and Sweden’s Margaretha Sigfridsson (7-2) made top grade, while Great Britain’s Eve Muirhead and Mirjim Ott of Switzerland both finished at 5-4, clear enough of the field – three teams finished 4-5.

Semifinals were up next!