On This Day in Olympic Curling History: Feb 7

BEIJING 2022

It was a busy day four years ago at the Ice Cube, as the mixed doubles round robin came to an end before the semifinals decided the next day’s gold and bronze medal match combatants.

The previous day, winless Australia had returned to the ice at the last minute – literally – following a positive COVID-19 test snafu that was overturned on appeal. 

The Aussies, Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt, then beat 2018 Olympic silver medallists Switzerland for their very first win, and followed it up by defeating defending champions Canada in a wild 10-8 affair; Australia was leading 7-0 at one point.

Canada’s John Morris had been Gill and Hewitt’s coach when they qualified for Beijing, and he and teammate Rachel Homan trained with the Aussies in isolation leading up to the Games.

This put the Canadians into a must-win against unbeaten Italy… and it was not to be. Once again Canada needed to make a storming comeback from 4-2 down and led 7-5, but Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner took two in the eighth end and stole the extra – on a measurement – for an 8-7 victory.

In other matches, Norway’s Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten defeated Jenny Perrett and Martin Rios of Switzerland 6-5 and Great Britain’s Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat took out USA’s Vicky Persinger and Chris Plys 8-4.

The Curling News set up the semis, with Editor In Chief George Karrys telling some great stories about all four teams: “Three partnerships recently forged (and) one occasionally bickering married couple.”

The semifinals were yet another example of Italy’s surprising power in the mixed doubles discipline. Constantini and Mosaner scored six unanswered points over the first five ends over Sweden’s Almida de Val and Oskar Eriksson, and won out 8-1.

The other semifinal was a thrilling battle between Great Britain and Norway.

Dodds/Mouat built leads of 3-1 and 4-2 before the Norwegians snapped a three-ender in the sixth for a 5-4 lead, but Skaslien/Nedregotten then held GBR to a fateful single in the seventh end, and scored one for the victory coming home.

PYEONGCHANG 2018

Although the first-ever Olympic mixed doubles curling competition technically started on Feb. 8, the time difference for North America meant a 7:05 p.m. start on Feb. 7.

In honour of that time zone technicality: Canada’s Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris lost 9-6 to Norway (Kristin and Magnus) while USA’s Hamilton siblings, Becca and Matt, defeated the OAR (Olympic Athletes from Russia) by a 9-3 count.  

NAGANO 1998

Denmark women’s skip Helena Blach-Lavrsen became the first curling athlete to ever carry a nation's flag at an Olympic (opening) ceremony, kicking off a long line of Olympic curlers who have served as Danish flagbearers at the Winter Games.

Meanwhile, our TCN Editor In Chief found some amazing opening ceremony images a few years ago, including some with Canada’s Sandra Schmirler team.

If you have Facebook, it’s worth a visit.