Big-name curlers are assigned with recapturing Canada’s Olympic magnificence

Homan and Morris to participate Gushue, Jones in Beijing

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Canada’s Olympic curling groups include eventually full

Rocks beginning traveling in Beijing in 20 period, but it took until this morning for Canada to mention its best entryway. John Morris and Rachel Homan will safeguard the blended doubles gold medal that Morris claimed in 2018 with former teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.

Homan and Morris happened to be one of the 16 teams that were expected to vie for Canada’s spot in Olympic competition from the nationwide blended doubles trials in Manitoba before the occasion got terminated latest month. A Curling Canada-led committee invested the previous few weeks deciding which duo to deliver to China, evaluating issue including current mixed-doubles efficiency in conjunction with international profits in standard styling. Another showy pairing during the working got reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There seemed to be furthermore considerable lobbying from users just who spend by themselves to mixed increases and think that should count.

But, overall, talent won . In the event the objective is to deliver the group making use of the finest ceiling, then the choice committee established on the biggest pick. Morris, 43, was a well-known Olympic performer which claimed a men’s silver medal given that next for Kevin prior to taking the mixed doubles title with Lawes in 2018. The 32-year-old Homan the most effective curlers ever before, with three Scotties games and some sort of title inside her trophy case. And theirs is no shotgun collaboration. Homan and Morris has starred blended increases collectively since 2015. Morris turned to Lawes four in years past after Homan won the Canadian ladies’ tests, which made this lady ineligible for Olympic combined doubles considering the styling Canada plan prohibiting anyone from contending in more than one curling occasion at the same Games.

In terms of Lawes, she is maneuvering to Beijing as well as a part of Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that obtained the Canadian ladies studies in obtained the men’s. In Gushue and Jones, Canada may have a former Olympic gold medallist at avoid both in associated with traditional styling tournaments in Beijing.

Given that we at long last learn everyone else that’s playing for Canada, let us get a quick go through the three Olympic styling competitions and exactly what the Canadian teams tend to be dealing with:

Initial, let us value the user friendliness on the Olympic straightening competitions. All three activities start off with a 10-team rounded robin, and the top four advance for the semifinals. The semifinal champions wager gold. The semifinal losers play for bronze. No web page playoffs, no weird triple-knockout brackets to understand. Effortless.

In 2018, whenever combined increases made the Olympic first with an eight-team show, Morris and Lawes had been a wrecking basketball. After shedding their unique opener to Norway, they reeled off eight direct victories to simply take silver, including a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland when you look at the last.

The silver-medal Swiss duo of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios are right back for Beijing. Thus is the Norwegian pairing of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, who had been given bronze following the guy on the Russian personnel that defeat all of them unsuccessful a doping examination. Besides Homan, truly the only different big-name avoid mixed up in combined increases tournament is very good Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s champ exactly who grabbed silver at the men’s worlds a year ago.

A big storyline in Beijing will be Homan’s make an effort to receive herself from a disastrous displaying in ladies’ celebration in 2018. The woman group gone 4-5 and turned into 1st Canadian rink to miss the playoffs within Olympics.

The blended increases celebration gets underway Feb. 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris play their own first online game that night at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. the uk. The semifinals take the early morning of age will be the overnight at 7:05 a.m. ET.

Canada additionally flopped within occasion in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s teams shedding for the semifinals to ultimate champ John Shuster of the U.S. and then obtaining upset by Switzerland within the bronze-medal games. Before these video games, no Canadian curling teams got actually did not victory a medal. In Pyeongchang, both standard teams performed.

For Gushue, loads changed since he won their Olympic silver medal in Italy 16 years ago. Back then, he was a skilled though notably raw child who threw last stones but leaned regarding the legendary Russ Howard to phone games from the 2nd position (within the official Olympic reports, Howard is actually noted because miss). Now Gushue is grown up — a 41-year-old daddy of two who’s completely in demand of his create. The guy seized three Brier games from 2017-20 and some sort of title in ’17. Gushue grabbed proper care of company while the preferred on Canadian trials in e en route to defeating Jacobs for the best.

Your competitors in Beijing is difficult. It includes Shuster, Mouat and five-time business champ Nik Edin of Sweden, who’s trying to find 1st Olympic silver after getting bronze in 2014 and sterling silver in ’18. The tournament starts Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, when Canada deals with Denmark. The semis are the morning of elizabeth try Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.

Jennifer Jones try curling royalty — the champ of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time world champ and an Olympic gold medallist in 2014. But her victory during the Canadian tests was actually somewhat of a shock. At 47, Jones was actually considered to be past the woman best, and the majority of perceiver ranked their behind Homan, Einarson as well as the red-hot Tracy Fleury. As expected, Jones shed to any or all of them in round robin. However when the potato chips happened to be down she came through, trouncing Krista McCarville inside the semis before taking the final from an undefeated Fleury in an additional end.

In Beijing, Jones can be facing all three medallists from 2018: protecting champ Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, southern area Korea’s Kim Eun-jung (gold) and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa (bronze). There is the champ with the final two business championships — Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni — and 2013 industry champ Eve Muirhead of good Britain, whom grabbed Olympic bronze in 2014.