“We Were Just Mediocre”

Tabitha Peterson’s USA lost to Canada and Japan and will miss the curling team playoffs at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

The Wednesday to forget saw the Americans, bronze medalists at the 2021 world championship in Calgary, drop a steal of two to Jennifer Jones’ surging Canadians early in their morning match for 4-1 deficit. USA clawed to within 4-3 and 6-5 but the 2014 Olympic champions scored a single in the 10th end for the 7-6 victory.

In the evening draw, Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa stole three points in the second end for a 4-0 lead. Again, the Americans fought hard and were down 7-3 when they cracked huge four-ender in the seventh end to tie the score at 7-7. However, the 2018 Olympic bronze medalists scored a deuce in the eighth end and added a steal in the ninth for the 7-6 win.

Fujisawa also defeated Team Peterson, then skipped by third Nina Roth, 10-5 at the 2018 Games in PyeongChang. American and Japanese teams are 3-3 in Olympic history since Nagano 1998.

“We are bummed,” said Peterson. “We gave it all, we got four (in the seventh end) to get back in the game, and then they stayed tough so we just couldn’t finish it off. It was just kind of a slow start for us.”

Team USA started the week on a flier, running to 3-0 with wins over ROC, Denmark and China. They lost 10-5 to Great Britain’s Eve Muirhead and 10-4 to Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg, the defending Olympic champion, before rebounding to defeat the 2018 Olympic finalists from Korea by an 8-6 count.

It was a Tuesday loss to defending world champions Switzerland that may have taken the air out of the American sails. Up 6-4 playing the ninth end, the Swiss scored four points and went on to win 9-6. Then came Team USA’s final matches on Wednesday.

“(There were) lots of good things (in the round robin),” Peterson said. “We had a lot of really, really, really good games against top teams in the world. We have to be proud of ourselves for that. We got to just take away all the good things from it and of course learn to go forward.

“We knew going in it was going to be tough. It was kind of whoever was going to be hot this week because it could be anyone, really. So we were just mediocre, I guess. But we have lots of good takeaways.”

Peterson, supported by Roth, Becca Hamilton, her sister Tara Peterson and Aileen Geving, offered thanks to the U.S. curling fans back home.

“Just a huge thank you and hugs,” she said. “I want to hug everyone when we get home. We felt the love all the way from halfway across the world.”