Homan and Morris to join Gushue, Jones in Beijing
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Canada’s Olympic styling groups are eventually comprehensive
Rocks beginning flying in Beijing in 20 weeks, it took until this morning for Canada to announce its best entry. John Morris and Rachel Homan will guard the mixed doubles gold medal that Morris won in 2018 with former teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.
Homan and Morris had been one of the 16 groups that were supposed to contend for Canada’s area for the Olympic event during the national combined doubles studies in Manitoba before the event got terminated latest thirty days. A Curling Canada-led panel invested the previous couple of days deciding which duo to deliver to China, evaluating issues including latest mixed-doubles performance in conjunction with worldwide achievements in old-fashioned styling. Another fancy pairing in the operating was actually reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There seemed to be also substantial lobbying from users exactly who spend themselves to combined doubles and think that should depend.
But, in the end, skill acquired completely. In the event that objective is to deliver the team aided by the finest ceiling, then the selection panel settled regarding most apparent select. Morris, 43, was a well-known Olympic musician just who won a men’s silver medal just like the third for Kevin before you take the mixed doubles name with Lawes in 2018. The 32-year-old Homan is one of the most effective curlers ever, with three Scotties games and some sort of title inside her trophy circumstances. And theirs is not any shotgun collaboration. Homan and Morris need starred mixed increases together since 2015. Morris turned to Lawes four in years past after Homan acquired the Canadian women’s tests, which made the woman ineligible for Olympic blended increases due to the straightening Canada policy prohibiting anybody from competing in more than one curling celebration at the same video games.
In terms of Lawes, she is going to Beijing too as a part on the Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that claimed the Canadian ladies’ tests in obtained the men’s. In Gushue and Jones, Canada are going to have an old Olympic gold medallist at skip both in with the traditional curling competitions in Beijing.
Given that we finally see everybody else that is playing for Canada, let’s simply take a fast go through the three Olympic straightening competitions and what the Canadian groups are dealing with:
Initial, let us enjoyed the simplicity regarding the Olympic styling competitions. All three occasions start out with a 10-team circular robin, together with best four advance with the semifinals. The semifinal champions wager gold. The semifinal losers wager bronze. No web page playoffs, no strange triple-knockout brackets to decipher. Effortless.
In 2018, whenever blended increases produced the Olympic debut with an eight-team occasion, Morris and Lawes comprise a wrecking baseball. After losing her opener to Norway, they reeled down eight right gains to simply take gold, including a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland for the last.
The silver-medal Swiss duo of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios are back once again for Beijing. So may be the Norwegian pairing of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, who have been given bronze following the guy about Russian professionals that defeat all of them hit a brick wall a doping test. Besides Homan, truly the only different big-name avoid active in the blended increases tournament is excellent Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s room champ whom took silver within men’s room worlds a year ago.
A big storyline in Beijing would be Homan’s make an effort to redeem herself from a disastrous revealing within the ladies’ event in 2018. The girl employees moved 4-5 and turned into the most important Canadian rink to overlook the playoffs in the Olympics.
The combined doubles event will get underway Feb. 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris bring her basic online game that nights at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. the uk. The semifinals take the early morning of elizabeth could be the following day at 7:05 a.m. ET.
Canada additionally flopped within this celebration in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s professionals shedding during the semifinals to ultimate champ John Shuster associated with the U.S. right after which acquiring disappointed by Switzerland inside bronze-medal game. Before these video games, no Canadian curling professionals got actually ever failed to victory a medal. In Pyeongchang, both traditional groups did.
For Gushue, a whole lot has changed since the guy acquired their Olympic silver medal in Italy 16 in years past. In those days, he was a skilled but still somewhat raw child who tossed next stones but leaned on legendary Russ Howard to call games through the second situation (inside the official Olympic registers, Howard try noted as the skip). Today Gushue is all adult – a 41-year-old pops of two that’s completely in demand of their craft. He grabbed three Brier games from 2017-20 and a global tournament in ’17. Gushue grabbed proper care of company while the favorite within Canadian tests in elizabeth en route to beating Jacobs in last.
Your competition in Beijing are hard. It provides Shuster, Mouat and five-time business champ Nik Edin of Sweden, that’s in search of 1st Olympic silver after taking bronze in 2014 and gold in ’18. The tournament opens Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, when Canada faces Denmark. The semis include morning of age was Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.
Jennifer Jones try curling royalty – the champ of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time globe champion and an Olympic silver medallist in 2014. But their triumph in the Canadian studies is somewhat of a shock. At 47, Jones is considered to be past her best, & most observers rated the lady behind Homan, Einarson therefore the red-hot Tracy Fleury. Sure enough, Jones forgotten to all of those when you look at the round robin. However when the chips had been down she arrived through, trouncing Krista McCarville inside the semis before stealing the ultimate from an undefeated Fleury in an extra conclusion.
In Beijing, Jones might be facing all three medallists from 2018: defending champ Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, southern area Korea’s Kim Eun-jung (sterling silver) and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa (bronze). Additionally the champion regarding the finally two community championships – Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni – and 2013 business champ Eve Muirhead of good Britain, which took Olympic bronze in 2014.
