United States Mixed Doubles Olympic Curling Trials | |
---|---|
Established | 2017 |
2021 host city | Eveleth, Minnesota |
2021 arena | Curl Mesabi Curling Club |
2021 champion | Vicky Persinger / Chris Plys |
Current edition | |
The United States mixed doubles Olympic curling trials occur every four years, in the year preceding the Winter Olympic Games. These trials have been used to determine the United States representatives in the year's Winter Olympic Games since mixed doubles curling was added to the Olympic program for the 2018 Winter Olympic games. [1]
The 2021 trials were originally announced to be held in Irvine, California, [2] but less than a month before they were to begin the decision was made to move them to Eveleth, Minnesota, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. [3]
Trials | Winning team | Runners-up | Location | Placing at Olympics |
---|---|---|---|---|
2017 | Becca Hamilton / Matt Hamilton | Cory Christensen / John Shuster | Blaine, Minnesota | 6th [4] |
2021 | Vicky Persinger / Chris Plys | Jamie Sinclair / Rich Ruohonen | Eveleth, Minnesota [3] |
Joseph Polo is an American curler who is best known for winning a bronze medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics and being the alternate on the gold-medal winning United States men's team at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Polo was raised in Floodwood, Minnesota before moving to Cass Lake. He learned to curl in nearby Bemidji at the age of 10 in the Bemidji Curling Club's Sunday Night Junior League.
John Shuster is an American curler who lives in Superior, Wisconsin. He led Team USA to gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics, the first American team to ever win gold in curling. He also won a bronze medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. He has played in five straight Winter Olympics and eleven World Curling Championships.
Matthew James Hamilton is an American curler from McFarland, Wisconsin. He currently plays front-end on Team John Shuster. He is a World Junior Champion, World Men's bronze medalist, and Olympic gold medalist.
Christopher Plys is an American curler from Duluth, Minnesota. He currently plays third on Team John Shuster. He is a World Junior Champion and four-time National Men's Champion. He was the alternate for the United States men's team at the 2010 Winter Olympics and a member of both the men's team and the mixed doubles team at the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Jason Smith is an American curler from St. Paul, Minnesota.
Jamie Ann Sinclair is an American-Canadian curler from Osgoode, Ontario and is a three-time U.S. National Champion. Her United States Curling Association membership is through the Charlotte Curling Association in Charlotte, North Carolina where she has a number of personal connections. She grew up in Manotick, Ontario, a suburb of Ottawa.
James H. Cotter is a Canadian curler from Vernon, British Columbia. He currently coaches the Corryn Brown rink.
Laura Walker is a Canadian curler from Edmonton, Alberta. She is a two-time Canadian University champion, a national junior champion, world junior silver medallist and world mixed doubles bronze medallist. Walker is originally from Scarborough, Ontario.
Satsuki Fujisawa is a Japanese curler from Kitami, Hokkaido. As a skip, she has won the Japanese national championship six times. Fujisawa skipped the bronze medal-winning Japanese team at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games and the silver medal-winning team at the 2022 Winter Olympics. She is currently the skip of the Loco Solare curling team.
Rebecca Lynn Hamilton is an American curler from McFarland, Wisconsin. She is a five-time national women's champion, three-time national mixed doubles champion, two-time national junior champion, and a two-time Olympian. At the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, she competed in mixed doubles curling with her brother, Matt, along with playing with the women's curling team. She was again on the women's curling team during the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Cory Thiesse is an American curler from Duluth, Minnesota. She currently plays third on Team Tabitha Peterson. She is a three-time defending U.S. women's champion, winning titles in 2021, 2023 and 2024. Thiesse was one of the top junior women's curlers in the United States, playing in six national junior championships and winning four of them. She was the alternate on Nina Roth's 2018 United States Olympic team.
Tabitha Skelly Peterson is an American curler from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was a bronze medalist at the 2010 World Junior Championships and is a three-time women's national champion. She currently is skip of her own team, having traded positions with Nina Roth during the 2020 off-season.
Korey Dropkin is an American curler originally from Southborough, Massachusetts. He currently skips his own team out of Duluth, Minnesota.
A total of 10 teams in each tournament qualified for a quota of 100 athletes in curling at the 2018 Winter Olympics. A further 8 mixed doubles pairs qualified for a total of 16 athletes. Therefore, a total of 116 athletes qualified in total to compete in the curling competitions.
The Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Olympic Trials, known until 2025 as the Canad Inns Canadian Mixed Doubles Trials for sponsorship reasons, occur every four years, in the year preceding the Winter Olympic Games. These trials have been used to determine the Canadian representatives in the year's Winter Olympic Games since mixed doubles curling was added to the Olympic program for the 2018 Winter Olympic games.
A total of 10 teams in each tournament will qualify for a quota of 100 athletes in curling at the 2022 Winter Olympics. A further 10 mixed doubles pairs will qualify for a total of 20 athletes. Therefore, a total of 120 athletes can qualify in total to compete in the curling competitions.
The United States Mixed Doubles Curling Championship is the national curling championship for mixed doubles curling in the United States. The winning team in the tournament represents the United States at that year's World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship.
Doubles curling is a variation of the sport of curling with only two players on each team. Mixed doubles is the most common format of doubles curling, where the term 'mixed' specifies that each team is composed of one man and one woman. The term mixed is also used to describe a specific format of 4-person team curling where the team consists of two men and two women and the throwing order alternates genders, see mixed team.
The 2021 United States Mixed Doubles Curling Championship was held from May 19 to 23, 2021 at the Wausau Curling Club in Wausau, Wisconsin. The championship featured twenty four teams split into four pools of six. After the round robin, the top two teams from each pool qualified for the playoffs with the first place teams advancing to the seeding round.
The 2021 United States mixed doubles curling Olympic trials were held from October 26 to 31, 2021, at Curl Mesabi in Eveleth, Minnesota. The trials featured ten teams played in a round robin tournament. After the round robin, the top four teams qualified for the page playoff. The winner of this event will represent the United States at the Olympic Qualification Event in hopes of reaching the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China.