Homan and Morris to become listed on Gushue, Jones in Beijing
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Canada’s Olympic straightening groups include finally full
Stones begin traveling in Beijing in 20 period, but it took until this morning for Canada to declare their final entryway. John Morris and Rachel Homan will protect the combined increases gold medal that Morris obtained in 2018 with previous teammate Kaitlyn Lawes.
Homan and Morris were on the list of 16 groups that were designed to vie for Canada’s area inside Olympic competition at nationwide mixed doubles studies in Manitoba prior to the show got terminated final period. A Curling Canada-led panel spent the last few months determining which duo to transmit to China, evaluating elements such as current mixed-doubles abilities along side international triumph in conventional curling. Another showy pairing in flowing was actually reigning Scotties champ Kerri Einarson and 2014 Olympic men’s room gold medallist Brad Jacobs. There was clearly additionally substantial lobbying from professionals whom spend on their own to blended increases and genuinely believe that should count.
But, in the end, ability acquired down. When the purpose is to deliver the team using highest threshold, then the choice committee decided on biggest pick. Morris, 43, was a proven Olympic performer who claimed a men’s gold medal as the 3rd for Kevin before taking the blended doubles title with Lawes in 2018. The 32-year-old Homan the most winning curlers actually ever, with three Scotties brands and some sort of championship within her trophy case. And theirs is no shotgun relationship. Homan and Morris need played combined doubles collectively since 2015. Morris turned to Lawes four in years past after Homan won the Canadian women’s trials, which produced the girl ineligible for Olympic combined increases as a result of the straightening Canada coverage prohibiting anybody from contending in more than one curling show in one video games.
For Lawes, she is heading to Beijing too as an associate of this Jennifer Jones-skipped rink that obtained the Canadian ladies’ studies in won the men’s room. In Gushue and Jones, Canada have an old Olympic gold medallist at miss in on the standard curling tournaments in Beijing.
Now that we eventually discover everybody else that’s playing for Canada, why don’t we bring an instant go through the three Olympic styling competitions and exactly what the Canadian teams is facing:
Initially, let us enjoyed the efficiency on the Olympic curling tournaments. All three happenings start with a 10-team circular robin, and also the top four advance towards semifinals. The semifinal winners wager silver. The semifinal losers wager bronze. No webpage playoffs, no odd triple-knockout brackets to understand. Easy.
In 2018, whenever mixed doubles produced its Olympic introduction with an eight-team occasion, Morris and Lawes had been a wrecking baseball. After losing their own opener to Norway, they reeled off eight straight victories to capture silver, including a 10-3 demolition of Switzerland inside the best.
The silver-medal Swiss duo of Jenny Perret and Martin Rios include back once again for Beijing. Therefore may be the Norwegian pairing of Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten, who had been granted bronze following guy about Russian teams that beat all of them hit a brick wall a doping test. Besides Homan, the only real more big-name skip active in the mixed increases event is very good Britain’s Bruce Mouat, a two-time European men’s room champ which 
took gold on men’s planets last year.
A big storyline in Beijing can be Homan’s try to get by herself from a devastating displaying in ladies’ celebration in 2018. The girl group moved 4-5 and turned into the very first Canadian rink to miss the playoffs at the Olympics.
The mixed increases celebration gets underway Feb. 2 at 7:05 a.m. ET, and Homan and Morris perform their unique earliest game that nights at 8:05 p.m. ET vs. britain. The semifinals are on the morning of e could be the next day at 7:05 a.m. ET.
Canada in addition flopped inside celebration in 2018, with Kevin Koe’s teams losing for the semifinals to eventual champ John Shuster of this U.S. and obtaining disappointed by Switzerland inside the bronze-medal video game. Before these video games, no Canadian straightening teams have actually neglected to victory a medal. In Pyeongchang, both old-fashioned teams performed.
For Gushue, a great deal has evolved since the guy obtained their Olympic gold medal in Italy 16 years back. In those days, he had been a talented yet still notably raw child just who put last rocks but leaned regarding the renowned Russ Howard to phone games from the 2nd place (in the formal Olympic information, Howard try listed just like the skip). Today Gushue is perhaps all grown-up – a 41-year-old father of two that’s completely in order of his craft. He caught three Brier titles from 2017-20 and a world championship in ’17. Gushue got care of company because the preferred at the Canadian tests in elizabeth en route to defeating Jacobs in final.
Your competition in Beijing are hard. It includes Shuster, Mouat and five-time business winner Nik Edin of Sweden, who’s looking 1st Olympic gold after getting bronze in 2014 and gold in ’18. The event opens Feb. 8 at 7:05 a.m. ET, whenever Canada deals with Denmark. The semis will be the morning of elizabeth is Feb. 18 at 1:05 a.m. ET.
Jennifer Jones is actually curling royalty – the champion of a record-tying six Scotties, a two-time globe winner and an Olympic silver medallist in 2014. But the girl victory within Canadian studies ended up being a bit of a shock. At 47, Jones got regarded as past her prime, and a lot of observers rated their behind Homan, Einarson together with red-hot Tracy Fleury. Sure enough, Jones lost to any or all ones in the circular robin. But once the potato chips happened to be down she came through, trouncing Krista McCarville from inside the semis before taking the ultimate from an undefeated Fleury in a supplementary conclusion.
In Beijing, Jones might be facing all three medallists from 2018: defending champ Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, Southern Korea’s Kim Eun-jung (gold) and Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa (bronze). Additionally, there is the champion from the final two business championships – Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni – and 2013 world champ Eve Muirhead of Great Britain, just who got Olympic bronze in 2014.