Historic Jones Loss, Gushue 2-1 at Olympics

Canada’s Jennifer Jones lost her first game in Olympic competition and Brad Gushue lost to Switzerland on a day of mixed results at the Ice Cube in Beijing.

Tabitha Peterson’s United States and Silvana Tirinzoni’s Switzerland lead the women’s field at 3-0 after three days of Olympic team curling. 

USA has the debatable “lighter” draw schedule early in the tournament, and face Sweden, Korea, Switzerland and Canada to close their week. Their next matches are against China and Great Britain.

Eve Muirhead’s GBR scored an impressive 8-2 win over arch-rivals Sweden (Anna Hasselborg) but sit at 1-2 after losses to Korea’s Kim Eun-Jung (9-7) and Switzerland, the latter on a 6-5 extra-end steal.

Canada’s Jennifer Jones is 1-1 after wins over Korea and her first-ever Olympic match loss, an 8-5 decision for Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa. Jones and her Canadian squad went undefeated to win gold at Sochi 2014.

“I’m so glad to win that big game, it’s so special for me,” said Japanese third Chinami Yoshida. “Also, I love Team Jones… they’re so good and that’s why I’m so happy to see them in the Olympics. I’m so happy to win this game, but I missed my last shot, so I hope to play better next game.”

Jones happened to hear Yoshida’s remark in the interview area, and gave her a hug.

Jones is now 7-6 lifetime against Yoshida’s team, but only 4-6 in the last four years.

Japan is also at 1-1, along with Denmark, Korea and Sweden. ROC, skipped by Alina Kovaleva, are 0-2 and China’s Han Yu is 0-3.

On the men’s side, Sweden’s Niklas Edin is alone in first place at 3-0. His closest match came against China (a 6-4 win) and he’s defeated Italy by a 9-3 scoreline and defending Olympic champion John Shuster of the United States 7-4.

Canada’s Brad Gushue was 2-0 until he ran into the defending Olympic bronze medalists from Switzerland, skipped by Peter de Cruz. A key steal in the second end and another in the ninth proved to be the biggest differentials as the Swiss captured a defensive 5-3 victory.

Tied for second with Canada are the Swiss, Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat and USA. ROC, huge Friday night winners via a steal of six points in the fifth end over Denmark, are 2-2 while China and Norway are at 1-2. Italy is at 0-2 while the Danes sit at 0-3.

“Scoring six is very rare, it maybe happened once in my career, stealing six,” said ROC skip Sergei Glukhov. “Denmark made three rough mistakes one after the other, like a snowball. We were just lucky.”