U.S. curlers falls into bronze round
PINEROLO, Italy — It doesn't get any easier for the American men in curling's bronze medal game.
After losing a semifinal match to Canada, which draws from the sport's biggest talent pool, the United States will play the team from curling's birthplace in the Olympic consolation game on Friday.
"It shouldn't get any easier. There's a lot of good teams here," U.S. team member Joe Polo said Wednesday night after Canada beat the Americans 11-5 to advance to the gold medal game. "And we think we're one of them."
The Americans will play for third place against a British team from Scotland, where curling has been played for more than 500 years. Canada will play Finland for the men's gold medal later Friday.
In the women's tournament, Sweden will play Switzerland for the gold. Canada will play Norway for the bronze.
Although curling is a niche sport at best in the United States, it is the No. 2 sport in Canada behind hockey. More than 94 percent of the world's curlers live there, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Co. In all, that's more than 1 million curlers and 29 world championships.
The Canadian men already have clinched a silver. But what they really want is the Olympic championship their countrymen have long assumed was theirs. Canada has won just one curling gold — the women's in 1998.
"We're not taking any satisfaction in the fact that we're guaranteed a silver," lead Jamie Korab said. "We came here to win the gold, and now we've got a shot."
American skip Pete Fenson still has a shot at a bronze that would be the first U.S. Olympic curling medal — men's or women's. The highly touted U.S. women failed to qualify for the medal round.
"We want to end this Olympic run with something around our neck," U.S. lead John Shuster said.
Finnish skip Markku Uusipaavalniemi used the big last-rock advantage called the hammer to score on the game's final throw and beat the British 4-3. That spoiled their hopes of bringing Scotland a gold medal to match the one the women won in Salt Lake City.
The Canadians finished off the U.S. with a whopping five points in the ninth end — one short of the Olympic record — when the Americans had to take chances to come from behind. The U.S. players quickly conceded the match.
"We had to kind of gamble a little, to try to steal a point or points from them," vice-skip Shawn Rojeski said. "We kind of put the game on the line going into that end. We were either going to steal a point and be tied coming home, or give them the game there in the ninth."
"Team decision," he said. "We tried it and it obviously backfired on us."
Both teams stayed by the ice to watch the Fins beat Britain, and Canadian skip Brad Gushue went over to console Fenson.
"For the first five ends, he did a real good job putting pressure on us," Gushue said. "Pete did a good job keeping them in the game."
Anette Norberg's takeout on the final shot of the game gave the Swedes a 5-4 win over Norway in the women's semifinals. Switzerland beat Canada 7-5 in the other semifinal.
Sweden is the defending world champion and has won the last six European titles; Switzerland was second the last three years. The Swedes beat the Swiss 9-7 last Friday in the preliminary round.
The Canadian women were the last team to qualify for the medal round and have been battling illness — either a flu bug or food poisoning — all week. Amy Nixon played after taking antibiotics but had to rest between shots.
"She had to sit every time she swept hard," skip Shannon Kleibrink said. "It was a big fight for her just to be in the game."
