Jennifer Jones’s rink sets Olympic record on the curling sheet
Jennifer Jones’s Olympic experience has been, well, perfect.
“It’s been everything we expected and then some,” the Winnipeg skip said. “It’s blown my dreams out of the water.
“We’ve gone to events, we’ve had fun, we’ve soaked up the experience, we’ve met the other athletes, we’ve cheered on our other teammates. We’ve laughed, we’ve loved everything absolutely possible, done everything with the Olympics. I don’t want it to end, we don’t want it to end.”
Jones, lead Dawn McEwen, second Jill Officer and third Kaitlyn Lawes also have won nine games in a row, making history in the process.
They dispatched South Korea 9-4 Monday to become the first women’s team to go through an Olympic roundrobin campaign undefeated.
“Just to be at the Olympics is amazing,” said Jones.
“And to go into the record books is pretty awesome.
“We’ll take that one, but at the end of the day, we want to be on the podium so that’s definitely the goal.”
Canada’s Kevin Martin, who did it four years ago in Vancouver, is the only other curler to go through the preliminary round undefeated.
“The job is certainly not done yet but I’m super proud of our team for being able to do that, in a field that we thought coming in was one of the toughest fields,” said Officer.
Canada will face Britain (54), while Sweden (7-2) takes on Switzerland (5-4) in Wednesday’s semifinals.
“Now you start fresh,” said Jones. “And everyone’s on an even record.”
Canada beat the Brits 9-6 during the round robin.
While Jones’s curling resume is filled with titles, she has had to wait a long time to experience the Olympics. She failed to secure an Olympic berth in both 2006 and 2010.
Shannon Kleibrink won bronze in 2006 in Turin, while Cheryl Bernard earned silver four years ago in Vancouver.
Canada has not won a women’s curling gold at the Games since the late Sandra Schmirler did it in 1998 in Nagano.
So far, so good for Jones in her Olympic debut.
“We’ve been very consistent,” she said.
“We’ve had a couple of games where we weren’t as sharp but still consistent and making the big shots when we have to.”
On Monday, Jones and her teammates were all smiles on the ice. Mistakes were quickly forgiven.
“We were having fun,” said Jones, a four-time Canadian champion and 2008 world champion.
“That’s the one thing that we came into these Olympics (with), we wanted to make sure that we enjoyed it.
“We’ve waited a whole lifetime it feels like to get here, and we’ve had a lot of attempts and we’ve failed to make the Olympics, so we wanted to enjoy it.
“And this was our last round-robin game, so we just enjoyed it. We soaked it up and it’s a moment we will never forget.”