Joy and Agony as Olympic Curling is Locked for Milano-Cortina

Australia’s mixed doubles team, seeking to recreate the magic of their 2021 qualifying run, suffered devastating twin playoff losses to bring an end to curling’s quadrennial Olympic Qualifying Event and confirm the full field for Milano-Cortina 2026.

In the first playoff in Kelowna, B.C., Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt lost their match 6-5 against Czechia’s Julia Zelingrova and Vit Chabicovsky. The Czechs opened a 4-2 lead at the break and despite Australia tying the score in the seventh end, Zelingrova was able to make her final draw for the victory, and score the first of the last two curling berths at the Olympic Winter Games in Cortina, Italy.

During that match, Korea defeated China by a 7-3 count, setting up the battle for the final Olympic spot: Australia versus Korea.

It was a tight 3-3 match through the break, although Korea’s Kim Seon-yeong and Jeong Yeongseok had stolen two of their three points early on.

Things began to fall apart for the Aussies in the sixth end, when Korea scored a three. Trailing 7-5 in the eighth and final end, Gill faced a near-impossible raise against three Korean counters and missed, resulting in an inflated final score of 10-5.

Three of the four winners will make their Olympic debuts in Cortina. 

Kim Seon-yeong is a member of Kim Eun-jung’s women’s fours team and won Olympic silver on home ice at PyeongChang 2018. Cortina will mark her third straight Olympics Winter Games; she’s the first Korean curling athlete to achieve the feat.

Gill and Hewitt had beaten undefeated China to finish atop their group at 6-1, while Czechia had done the same thing to Korea (both 6-1) in Group B. 

The Australians made waves at the previous 2021 OQE. Initially coached by Canada’s John Morris, they made it through the qualifier in the Netherlands to the Olympics in Beijing, the first Australian curlers to accomplish the feat.

After training with Morris and his appointed Olympic teammate Rachel Homan – during COVID isolation in Canmore, Alta. – they defeated Morris (now their former coach) and Homan at the Games to begin Canada’s ousting from the mixed doubles playoff picture.

Two Canadian coaches will head to Italy with the last mixed doubles teams – five time Brier competitor Wade Scoffin with Czechia and world senior champion Howard Rajala with Korea.

Though its history is brief, the Olympic Qualifying Event has left curling athletes in both absolute joy and crushing disappointment. Earlier in the competition it was Norway’s women’s fours team, skipped by Marianne Roervik, that lost both their playoff games for Cortina. 

In past OQE’s, Czechia men’s fours teams – skipped by Lukas Klima in 2021 and Jiri Snitl in both 2017 (with Klima in tow) and 2013 – have suffered multiple qualifying losses.

Klima’s results at the 2025 world men’s championship qualified his team outright for Milano-Cortina. 

Czechia’s Chabicovsky celebrated his team’s win with gusto. 

“We’re very proud, but it’s not sunk in yet,” he told World Curling. “Maybe it will after a couple of hours. 

“I think when we have a lot on the line, then that’s when we perform our best. The more there is on the line, the more nervous we are, the better we play.” 

In Kelowna’s fours team competition, the U.S. women and Chinese men grabbed the final spots at Milano-Cortina 2026 after Japan’s women and the U.S. men had won the first berths.