Olympic Curling’s Major Moments

The 2022 Olympics in Beijing have come and gone and as expected, they provided sports fans from around the world with moments of triumph and disappointment. Most importantly, they provided every athlete in Beijing with an opportunity to compete and perform on the world’s biggest sporting stage.

The sport of curling was part of the Olympic program for the seventh time since returning as a full-medal sport at the 1998 Games in Nagano. The venue for the curling competitions was the Beijing National Aquatics Centre, a venue best remembered as the “Water Cube” where American swimmer Michael Phelps won eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics.

In 2022, the “Water Cube” became the “Ice Cube” and although no athlete won eight medals in the venue this time around, there were many moments that occurred inside that curling fans should remember for a long time.

Here are nine such moments.

Tomorrow, part II brings us more including Best Game, Personal Moments, Most Exciting Game and MVPs for both women and men.

Brava Italia

When the mixed doubles discipline was added to the Olympic curling program in time for the 2018 Olympics, the hope was that it would provide developing curling nations with an opportunity to compete for Olympic glory and provide much-needed visibility in selected countries. However, led by Canada, the traditional curling powers have viewed mixed doubles as an additional opportunity for Olympic glory and additional funding. The result has been an influx of players from the world’s top men’s and women’s teams competing at the world championships and Olympics in the new discipline.

Then, just when it looked like the mixed doubles competition in Beijing might be dominated by traditional powers—such as Sweden, Canada and Great Britain—the doors at the “Ice Cube” opened and in walked the Italian pair of Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner. 

The Italians simply dominated the mixed doubles competition, going undefeated in the round-robin, beating a Swedish team that included a then two-time Olympic medalist Oskar Eriksson in the semifinal and crushed the gold medal game against the great Norwegian mixed doubles team of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten.

The victory by the Italian duo was also well-timed as Constantini, Mosaner and the sport of curling will surely be highlighted throughout the next quadrennial by the organizing committee of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

The GOAT

Four years ago—February 24, 2018—Niklas Edin and his team from Sweden gave up a now-famous five-ender to Team Shuster of the United States in the Olympic men’s final in Pyeongchang.

How did Edin and his team respond to that devastating loss in Korea?

They have won three consecutive world championships, a European title and Edin and Oskar Eriksson have now completed their Olympic set of medals, winning men’s gold in Beijing to add to the silver they won in Pyeongchang and the bronze in Sochi.

Discussions about who is the greatest of all time—or “GOAT”— are subjective in any sport. However, Niklas Edin must certainly now be part of the conversation in the sport of curling. He has won an Olympic medal of every colour and has skipped his team to five world championships and seven European championship titles, a resumé that compares nicely to that of any other curler, male or female, throughout history.

The Queen of Curling

What an Olympic cycle it has been for Eve Muirhead. It started with the retirement of longtime third Anna Sloan, there was a hip injury that required surgery and there were lineup changes on a yearly basis. This upheaval, both on and off the ice, led to inconsistent performances including a poor result at the 2021 World Championships in Calgary, which forced Great Britain into a last chance Olympic qualifying event just two months before the Games.

As all great champions seem to do, Muirhead figured out how to right the ship. She started with solid Tour wins, then scored a victory at the 2021 Europeans followed a few short weeks later by securing an Olympic spot for Great Britain at the qualifying event in The Netherlands. 

The round-robin in Beijing was a bumpy ride with Team Muirhead securing a spot in the playoffs on the strength of their “Draw Shot Challenge” scores followed by a wild semi-final win over Sweden that saw each team score both a three-ender and a four-ender.

Finally, after easily defeating Japan’s Team Fujisawa for the gold medal, Eve Muirhead had finally ascended to the top of the women’s game, a spot that so many expected her to reach during her heralded junior career over a decade ago.

Oh Canada

For the second consecutive Olympics, Canada’s curling contingent is coming home with a single medal. Casual curling fans were up in arms during the Beijing Olympics and many in the Canadian curling community quickly started soul-searching and finger-pointing as people try to figure out “what is wrong with Canadian curling.”

The hard reality is that the other curling nations have simply gotten better and on any given week there are teams from as many as eight countries who could challenge for a spot on the podium, especially on the women’s side. Canada’s biggest advantage, its depth of talent, is irrelevant at an event like the Olympics because there is only one team per country in the field.

There is also a less-discussed advantage for many of the European and Asian teams at an event like the Olympics. Most of their teams and athletes are much more familiar with the pressure that comes with wearing their national colors at important events. 

Team Hasselborg, as an example, has worn Sweden’s “Tre Kronor” more often in this cycle than Team Jones, Team Homan, Team Einarson and Team Fleury have worn the maple leaf combined over the same period. Jennifer Jones had worn her national colours fewer times in international competition than all but two of the other skips in Beijing.

Yes, Team Jones and the other top Canadian teams play in several high-pressure events each season including the Scotties/Brier, Canada Cup and others. However, the pressure of representing your country at an international event with Olympic or world championship medals on the line is totally different than the pressure a Canadian curling team will feel at a Scotties/Brier or even the Olympic Trials.

Are Two Events Better?

Since mixed doubles was added to the Olympic program, there has been an ongoing debate in countries such as Canada about whether it is feasible to ask an athlete to compete in two curling disciplines at the same Olympic Games. In 2018, the only athletes that attempted the double were Becca and Matt Hamilton of the United States. The pair went 2-5 in mixed doubles, but Matt went on to win a historic gold medal as a member of Team Shuster.

This year in Beijing, with the continued influx of top-tier athletes into the mixed doubles discipline, a handful of curlers competed in both mixed doubles and four-person. Oskar Eriksson of Sweden became the first athlete to win medals in two disciplines at the same Olympics, winning gold in the men’s event and bronze in mixed doubles. Meanwhile the British team of Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat may have lost the bronze medal game in mixed doubles but went on to win gold and silver in the women’s and men’s events.

For his part Chris Plys of the United States failed to medal in either discipline but reached the playoffs in the men’s event after competing in mixed doubles. Last but certainly not least, Amos Mosaner of Italy followed up his mixed doubles gold by throwing over 80% for the week as the third on the Italian men’s team.

A country with the depth that Canada has can certainly decide to maintain their current policy that athletes can only compete in one curling discipline at any given Olympic Games. However, curlers such as Eriksson, Dodds and Mouat proved in Beijing that it is completely feasible for a curler to compete in two disciplines and have success in both.

Is Timing Really Everything?

There has been a push in Canada to move the Olympic Trials to earlier in the curling season or perhaps even to the spring prior the Olympics. The main argument given for this suggested change is that it is difficult for an athlete to peak at the Olympic Trials and then peak again two months later at the Olympics themselves.

Just as this approach was starting to gain traction as one of the reasons why Canadian teams have struggled at the Olympics in 2018 and 2022, Eve Muirhead and her team of Scots provided an emphatic counterpoint. They won the Europeans in Norway on November 27, earned their OQE berth in Beijing December 16, and won Olympic gold on February 20 in Beijing. That’s three high-stress curling events in less than 90 days for a lineup that has only been together for a few months.

The debate on when the Canadian Olympic Trials should be held will go on, but Team Muirhead certainly proved that winning two or more high-stress events in a relatively short period of time is certainly not impossible.

The Swiss Miss

As disappointed as many Canadian curling fans were with the results in Beijing, the Swiss curling program also had difficult weeks in China. Switzerland was represented by the seventh-ranked women’s team, the eighth-ranked men’s team and the third-ranked mixed doubles team in the world, yet left Beijing without a medal.

The two-time reigning world champion Silvana Tirinzoni had a terrific round-robin in Beijing but fell to Japan in the semifinal and then lost the bronze medal game to Sweden’s Team Hasselborg to go home empty-handed.

On the men’s side, the reigning Olympic bronze medalists skipped by Peter de Cruz started strong at 3-1 in Beijing but lost four of their final five games to finish 4-5 and finish in seventh place.

In mixed doubles, 2018 Olympic silver medalists and 2017 world champions Jenny Perret and Martin Rios got off to a 1-4 start in the round-robin and never recovered, finishing at 3-6 for seventh place.

Timing, as they say, is everything and the Swiss teams simply had bad timing in Beijing, showing lesser form at important moments which cost them a chance at the podium.

No Miracurl In Beijing

When Team Shuster won a gold medal for USA at PyeongChang, some curling insiders attempted to position it as a “Miracle on Ice” akin to America’s stunning ice hockey gold back in 1980. To be fair, this was mostly a publicity stunt as Shuster skipped a well-respected and experienced team that had won a bronze medal at the 2016 worlds and consistently did well against some of the top teams in the world.

This time around, both the American men’s and women’s teams arrived in Beijing with more expectations and pressure on their shoulders than in 2018 … which may have been a little unfair. 

Team Shuster has been good but not spectacular since 2018 and played well in Beijing, losing the bronze medal game to Canada. 

Meanwhile, Tabitha Peterson’s outfit were one of the teams that many expected to challenge for a spot on the podium in the women’s event. The reigning bronze medalists at the world championship started 4-2 in Beijing but then hit a wall, losing their final three round-robin games to miss the playoffs.

Hosts Fail To Surprise

When Bingyu Wang won a world championship in 2008 and then won bronze at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, many in the broader curling community believed it was the beginning of an explosion for the sport of curling in the world’s most populous country. When Beijing was named hosts for 2022 there was investment in the sport, the Curling World Cup was created and Chinese curling hired legendary Swedish skip and coach Peja Lindholm to lead their program.

For all the work put into the Chinese program over the past few years, the results in Beijing had to be somewhat disappointing if not unexpected. Both the men’s and women’s teams finished 4-5 and were spoilers more than true contenders for the podium, while their mixed doubles team won their first two games but then lost seven in a row to finish at 2-7.

The future remains bright for curling in a country where there is so much room for growth, but you must believe that the Games in Beijing were a bit of a missed opportunity for curling in China.