U.S. men, women curlers motivated to win medals

GANGNEUNG, South Korea - John Shuster is at his fourth Olympics. Nina Roth is at her first. In its quest to finally add a second curling medal to the bronze the men’s team won in 2006, the United States will be relying on two skips who live in Wisconsin (Shuster in Superior, Roth in Madison) but could otherwise not be more different.

Shuster is the grizzled veteran. Roth is the fresh new face. Shuster is back in the Olympics against all odds. Roth is a rising star who seemed destined to be here.

“We definitely feel like we can win a medal,” Roth said. “It would be the greatest feeling in the world to make America and USA Curling proud.”

USA Curling wasn’t the least bit proud after the past two Olympics, when both teams essentially flopped. The women finished 10th out of 10 at Vancouver and Sochi. The men finished 10th and ninth.

Shuster, who was part of the team that won the bronze in 2006, was the skip of both the last two men’s teams and got ripped by Americans watching back at home.

“People were mean,” he said. “I could probably read mean tweets from 2010 for three hours and not read the same tweet twice.”

Someone created a new verb in the Urban Dictionary. To “Shuster” meant “to fail to meet expectations.” The entry is still up.

Worse, after the Olympics ended, USA Curling had a “combine” to pick 10 athletes for their new high-performance program, and Shuster didn’t make the cut.

“The thing that got me was the press release that came out that said they thought they’d picked the 10 male and 10 female athletes that gave them the best chance of international success in the foreseeable future,” Shuster said. “I went to work the next day.”

Shuster — who once said “If I don’t have pizza three or four times a week I’m not happy” — changed his diet and started working out. He resolved to recruit his own team.

“I sent a Facebook message that said, ‘The high-performance program decided to go in another direction but if anyone wants to join my high-performance team, shoot me a message,’” he said. “I got a lot of messages.”

Shuster settled on Tyler George, Matt Hamilton and John Landsteiner as his new teammates. (Joe Polo has since been added as the alternate). The four became known in the curling world as “Team Reject.” At least, until Team Reject won the national championship, and the high-performance program decided to invite the men to join.

Now Shuster is back at the Olympics, 35 pounds lighter than the last time around.

“No question, there’s some vindication,” he said. “I don’t hold a grudge. But to get back here, four years later, is something to be proud of.”

Roth, by contrast, admits to “feeling butterflies” as she and her teammates prepare to compete at the Olympics for the first time. The girl who started curling after her Girl Scout troop took a trip to a rink has grown into a skip with the potential to win the first Olympic medal in women’s curling for the United States.

“We practiced to deal with those nerves,” she said. “We like to laugh and have fun. We’ll probably just try to get together and be as team-y as possible.”

That team includes Tabitha Peterson, Aileen Geving, Becca Hamilton and Cory Christensen. It finished fifth at the 2017 World Championship.

So maybe the old guys can find redemption. Maybe the new women can break through.

“Our goal is definitely a medal,” Roth said. “We’d have a party, for sure.”