Chaotic Thursday in store for fans
Japan’s Chinami Yoshida had just helped her team defeat USA 10-7 when she spoke to the assembled press corps.
“I love the Olympics and I love curling!” declared the perennially smiling third, who leads all worldwide curling athletes with 180,000 Instagram followers.
“There is always winning and losing because of curling, but when we lose I always want to enjoy because that’s why I’m here. So that’s why I’m smiling.
“This is a big win for us because it was a tough situation losing two in a row so now it’s one of our strengths to come back stronger after losing.”
The words might be mildly confusing but the meaning is clear—curling is awesome and this Beijing 2022 Olympic version is headed for a gripping round robin finale.
On the men’s side, Sweden’s Niklas Edin, Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat and Canada’s Brad Gushue are into the semifinals, the latter getting the spot despite having Wednesday off. Mouat and Gushue face off in the final men’s round robin draw on Thursday.
Norway and United States are both in the running for the final playoff spot. Defending Olympic champion John Shuster faces Denmark’s Mikkel Krause while Norway’s Steffen Walstad battles Italy’s Joel Retornaz.
Retornaz walloped Shuster 10-4 on Tuesday evening, after the Americans had won a key matchup 7-4 over Switzerland that morning.
In women’s play, Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg became the second team—after Switzerland—to clinch a semifinal berth with an 8-5 win over ROC on Wednesday night.
Korea kept themselves in the mix with an 8-7 comeback victory over Denmark, as did Japan with their win over USA.
Canada’s game against hosts China was a remarkable display of amazing shotmaking and head-shaking misses. Canada’s Jennifer Jones made an open draw for a whopping five points in the sixth end but her effort barely made a dent in the Chinese offense. The wild-west shootout finally ended with a Chinese steal of two in the extra-end for a stunning 11-9 victory.
“We struggled a little bit maybe with the ice tonight when we haven’t been all week,” said Jones. “So we’ll just have to be sharper for tomorrow and see what happens.”
China had recently dropped 21-year-old star skip Han Yu to the bench and elevated Wang Rui to skip stones. Rui wasn’t even included in China’s original five-player lineup announced in mid-January, but was then announced as the team alternate, then as third, before becoming skip.
“We didn’t focus on our opponents, we were just focusing on our own game and we didn’t care about them,” said Rui. “We just followed our strategies and our goals.”
As a result of the chaos, five teams—Japan, Korea, Canada, China and Great Britain—still have a chance to claim the final two women’s playoff spots alongside Switzerland and Sweden.
Thursday’s round robin women’s final sees Japan take on Switzerland, ROC against GBR, Denmark challenge Canada and Sweden battle Korea.
There are multiple scenarios at play, including one where Canada wins their match against Denmark but still doesn’t qualify for the playoffs.
China will finish at 4-5, tied with USA. That’s also the won/loss mark for China’s men’s squad, skipped by Ma Xiuyue, which finished strongly with wins over Norway (8-6) and disappointing Switzerland (6-5).