Olympic stumble more blip than alarming trend
There were moments after Canada’s stunning fall in men’s and women’s curling at the 2018 Olympics when the hand-wringers began calling for significant changes to the qualifying process.
The thinking went that something needed to be done to better prepare the Canadian teams for the Olympics after Rachel Homan of Ottawa and Kevin Koe of Calgary finished off the podium in South Korea. But cooler heads prevailed and you have to think Curling Canada’s decision to stay the course was the right one, given Canada has won eight international medals since the day the Olympics ended.
“There was certainly panic in the streets from the curling public, but Curling Canada and Own The Podium and the Canadian Olympic Association understand that things do happen,” said Jeff Stoughton, the men’s national team coach and head of the Canadian mixed doubles program.
“We didn’t feel that there was a need to make dramatic changes because of the results at the Olympics.
“I think we can all look at it as a blip. You look historically over the last four or five years and Canada has been on the podium, if not winning the gold medal, in every world championship out there. The Olympics were just a blip. It just happened.”
Since the Olympics ended with only one medal for Canada — John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes took gold in mixed doubles — Canada claimed five medals at the 2018 world championships and three more at the inaugural World Cup event in China last weekend.
Jennifer Jones won the world women’s championship, Tyler Tardi and Kaitlyn Jones won the world junior crowns, Brad Gushue took silver at the men’s worlds and Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres earned bronze at the mixed doubles worlds.
At the World Cup, Homan and Koe both earned gold medals, as did Walker and Muyres.
“I was over there with the teams and they had it ratcheted up a little more than usual because they were wearing the Maple Leaf,” said Nolan Thiessen, Curling Canada’s manager of championship services and athlete liaison.
“It was a big deal for them to go out there and win.”
Curling Canada did look at concerns raised and some tweaks will be made to the qualifying process, including the Olympic trials in 2021.
For the most part, though, they came to the conclusion that Canada is in fine shape and the rest of the world is getting pretty good at curling, too.
“We sent good teams over there, but sports happened,” Thiessen said. “You can’t predict anything. It’s one of those deals where we could change absolutely everything about the trials process and still not medal and we could change nothing about the process and go triple gold.”
One idea floated at the Olympics was moving the Canadian trials to the season before the Olympics to give the teams more time to prepare. Stoughton said the trials will likely be moved up a week or two, but not to the previous year.
“We didn’t feel like anything was really substantially broken, so why change the process now?” Stoughton said.
Those eight international medals would suggest he’s absolutely right.