Recent head to head battles
There was intrigue on display as the men’s round robin wrapped up and the four playoff teams were declared for tonight’s Olympic men’s team semifinals.
Canada’s Brad Gushue are the only Canadian curlers left with a chance at a medal in Beijing, following the elimination of the women’s team skipped by Jennifer Jones.
Gushue’s Team Canada lost their last round robin match against Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat 5-2, and things were getting chippy on the ice. At one point, the athlete microphones caught Gushue directing a comment toward second Brett Gallant.
“I wish he’d stop questioning me and just hit the broom.”
The loss didn’t matter to the playoff picture as Canada had claimed the third playoff berth during an off-day on Wednesday. But while Gushue is 10-6 lifetime against Mouat, the two skips are now deadlocked at 5-5 in the current quadrennial (2018-22).
Mouat won the Olympic men’s round robin with an 8-1 won/loss record.
Gushue, whose team finished the round robin at 5-4, now faces Sweden in one of two Thursday night semifinals. Niklas Edin’s crew lost their last round robin game 10-8 to Switzerland and finished second at 7-2.
The defending world champions—they’ve won the last three, actually—and 2018 Olympic silver medalists have a subpar record against Gushue’s Canadians, losing 21 games and winning only eight times in career head-to-head matchups. The Swedish record is 2-4 over the last four years but does include a 7-4 round robin victory earlier in Beijing, and the Swedes are known for their “big game” playoff prowess.
Gushue’s 5-4 record at the Ice Cube doesn’t quite fit with the career 61-24 record against this field he first brought to Beijing. That remarkable win percentage of nearly 72% drops to 64% (16-9) over the past four years, still enough to have given him a definite mathematical edge over his opponents at the start of the competition.
John Shuster’s United States claimed the fourth and final berth in the semis with a final round robin win over Denmark’s Mikkel Krause. The Danes started with a score and a steal for an early 2-0 lead, but it was all USA after that in a match the Americans knew they had to win.
Shuster’s defending Olympic champions scored two in the third end and stole a huge three-count in the fourth for a 5-2 lead. They eventually logged a 7-5 victory to join Canada at 5-4.
“As the week went on, everybody seemed to be dropping games that you didn’t expect them to drop, so we’ve had to have the mentality of focusing on what we can control,” said USA third Chris Plys. “We got a little bit fortunate as the week went on, but that’s just curling.
“The first step for us has been to get here (the semifinals). Britain are a phenomenal team and it’s exciting to get a crack at them.”
Indeed, Shuster faces the Mouat Machine in the other semi. Shuster has a decent 6-4 career record against the Scots but—more impressively—holds a 6-2 record in their last seven meetings over the quadrennial. That includes a 9-7 USA victory in the third men’s draw at the Ice Cube.
Norway’s Steffen Walstad had a chance to sneak into the playoffs ahead of USA, but only if the Americans had lost. His team did their part in their final round robin game, beating Italy 9-4, but it was too little, too late.
Norway finished at 4-5, tied with hosts China, Switzerland and ROC. Italy finished at 3-6 while Denmark went 1-8.