Italians reunite three years later
Stefania and Big Amos are curling together for the first time since winning Olympic gold more than three years ago in Beijing.
That sounds kind of wild.
The Italian duo—women’s fours skip Stefania Constantini and men’s fours third Amos Mosaner—won a surprise Olympic mixed doubles title in 2022.
Until the start of this week’s World Mixed Doubles Championship in Fredericton, they hadn’t played together since.
Mosaner simply didn’t want to play the MD discipline any more, and chose to focus on men’s team play.
That went well for a while. Very well, in fact, as the Joel Retornaz squad won their first Grand Slam title in 2023 and then captured three in a row in 2024.
But after TCN columnist Kevin Palmer wrote about the team’s search for a record-setting fourth straight Slam crown, they didn’t win another.
Their just-completed 2024-25 Slam season was comparably poor, with the team dropping out in the quarterfinals four times.
Not necessarily what you want heading into an Olympic season as the host team.
So Mosaner is back in mixed doubles with Constantini, who had been teamed with two different partners in 2023 and ’24.
If Mosaner hadn’t decided to return, there is little doubt he would’ve been forced to by FISG, the Italian Ice Sports Federation. There’s just no way the defending Olympic gold medallists wouldn’t be competing on home ice in Cortina.
It’s early days in Fredericton, but the old mixed dubs magic seems to be working again.
The Italians walloped both Finland and Germany by 10-3 scorelines and also took out Korea 9-4 for a share of first place in their pool at 3-0.
They scored a huge five-ender in the fifth end of their match against the Germans to serve notice.
(World Curling video below)
After challenging Denmark, things will get serious with pool games against Canada (Jocelyn Peterman/Brett Gallant), Scotland (Jenn Dodds/Bruce Mouat), China (Han Yu/Wang Zhiyu) and Sweden (Anna Hasselborg/Oskar Eriksson).
Canada and Scotland are also 3-0, while China and Sweden are 2-1.
Constantini and Mosaner will wrap their pool series against the Netherlands on May 1, with playoffs starting May 2.
Denmark and Netherlands are presently 0-3.
The other pool features MD heavyweights Estonia (3-0), Norway (2-1) and Switzerland (1-2) as well as USA and Japan (both 2-1).
Australia’s charming duo of Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt—remember them from Beijing?—are also off to a strong 3-0 start.
It’s a critically important world championship as the top six finishers (plus hosts Italy) will qualify their nations for the Cortina Olympics in February.
The final country will come from the Olympic Qualifying Event to be hosted at Kelowna, BC in December.
As usual, the World Seniors is being played at the same time.
The mixed doubles championship can be viewed at the Curling Channel, operated by World Curling.