Final Four in Olympic Curling Mixed Doubles Qualifying

The final four are into the playoffs at the Olympic Qualifying Event (OQE) for mixed doubles at Kelowna, B.C.

Less than a week after the last two men’s and women’s four-player qualifiers were declared for Milano-Cortina 2026, the final two mixed doubles nations are poised to be confirmed, thus confirming the full curling field for the Olympic Winter Games.

Following the round-robin stage of the mammoth 16-team, two-pool OQE, Czechia and Australia topped their groups and will face each other on Thursday morning at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time in Qualification Game One. The winner of this game will earn the first of two berths in Cortina. 

The second-placed teams from the two round-robin groups are Korea and China. They will also face each other at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday. The loser of that game will be eliminated and the winner progressing to the final Qualification Game at 17:00, where they will play the loser of Qualification Game One to compete for the last Olympic mixed doubles place.

Group B saw Australia beat China 6-5 in their last round robin game to finish top of Group B and qualify for the playoffs. Both teams finished 6-1.

Netherlands were 5-1 heading into their round robin finale, but lost 8-5 to New Zealand.

Group B was in chaos as Austria had to forfeit their second, third and fourth games due to illness (there are no alternate players nor substitutions in the mixed doubles discipline). The Austrians then formally withdrew from the tournament.

As such, Japan earned a default win over Austria to complete their round robin at 5-2. They waited to see the result of undefeated Korea versus Czechia, knowing that a Czechia win would eliminate Japan. 

Czechia opened with a score of two and then played a nose hit for three in the third end, good for a 5-1 lead. The Czechs then stayed in control and eventually scored three in the seventh end for a 9-3 scoreline.

This result put Czechia on top of the group with two chances of qualifying for Cortina, while Korea qualified in second place. Japan finished third, out of playoff contention.