U.S. reaches first Olympic curling mixed doubles final, will face Swedish siblings for gold
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Korey Dropkin whooped and hollered and directed a string of fist pumps to a small pocket of American curling fans chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
The U.S. is headed to the mixed doubles final at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics — and has quashed the title hopes of the host nation in the process. Dropkin and his more stoic partner, Cory Thiesse, guaranteed the U.S. its first Olympic medal in the mixed event with a 9-8 victory over Italy in a riveting semifinal match on Monday.
“I bring out a little bit more energy than I probably should,” Dropkin said, grinning through a voice hoarse from yelling in celebration.
“You don’t see football players, basketball players, baseball players always hiding their emotions,” he continued. “You know when they’re pissed off and you know when they’re having a good time. Why not curlers, too?”
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Thiesse, from the curling haven of Duluth, will become the first woman to win an Olympic medal for the U.S.
The gold medal game begins just after 11 a.m. Central time on Tuesday.
In that title match, the Americans will play Sweden, whose brother-and-sister team of Isabella and Rasmus Wrana upset the British pair of Jennifer Dodds and Brett Mouat in a 9-3 blowout in just seven ends.
Dropkin, who’s originally from Massachusetts but now lives in Duluth, and Thiesse are competing in their first Olympics. They hugged tightly after the final rock settled to earn two points and the win for the Americans.
Thiesse said it was “crazy” she was going to be playing in a final, adding: “Just a dream week really.”
Asked how it felt to beat the Italians, Dropkin said: “There’s no better way to make the Olympic final than to go through the reigning Olympic champions."
Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner have enjoyed raucous support over the past week, with Italian fans registering their approval by banging on the old wooden bannisters inside the Cortina Curling Stadium and screaming “Italia! Italia! Italia!” In Constantini, Italy found a new Olympic darling — and she looked stunned as the tables slowly turned.
The Italians had defeated the U.S. earlier in the day.
Dodds and Mouat, who entered the field as favorites, shook hands with the Wrana siblings with one end still to play. Sweden’s brother-and-sister combo grew up as rivals and now they could win gold together.
“We knew that we had to play our best game of the week to have a chance to beat Great Britain because they’re so good," Rasmus Wrana said.
Asked how they came back from three losses in a row earlier in the round robin, Isabella Wrana said: “Mixed doubles, anything can happen.”
Italy will take on Britain in the bronze-medal match a few hours before the final.
In mixed doubles curling, teams with one woman and one man face off against one another.
In a curling match, two teams compete to see which can get the most granite stones closest to a bullseye target called the tee by sliding them along a narrow sheet of ice.
The distance between where a player must release the stone and the tee at the other end is about 93 feet.
The sheet is only 16.4 feet wide and both teams’ stones accumulate every round, so it gets crowded.
Each round, for up to 10 rounds, teams have eight chances to slide the specialized 44-pound stones toward the tee. They can aim directly for the center, try to knock their opponents’ stones away or nudge their own stones closer to the target. Strategies include blocking and take-outs.
