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Brett Gallant will make history at the Milan Cortina Olympic Games when he becomes the first Canadian curler to compete in two disciplines at the same Winter Games.
It is a fact that should also nullify the advantage that some other countries have enjoyed in previous Olympic Games when their athletes played in mixed doubles and four-player competitions.
Curling Canada changed its policy for this quadrennium to allow players to compete in both events. In addition to giving curlers the opportunity to have two chances at the podium, it provides teams with valuable information about the ice, rocks and conditions in the playing scenarios.
“We would love to have our training camp on the Olympic ice before the Olympics,” said Team Jacobs coach Paul Webster. “Brett can do that for us. So we’re very excited.”
The competition begins at the Cortina Olympic Curling Stadium with mixed doubles. Gallant and his partner Jocelyn Peterman will begin playing on February 4.
Gallant will then join his Canadian men’s team, which Brad Jacobs skipped, for its first game a week later. The Canadian women’s team that Rachel Homan skipped starts on February 12.
“Rarely in any other sport would you have an advanced scout at the event in front of you on the actual field of play, [in our case it’s] ice conditions,” Webster said. “Brett is an extremely intelligent player in terms of reading the ice, strategy, rocks, all of that.
“Having [mixed doubles coaches] Scott Pfeifer and Laine Peters in his corner to help with follow-up [also helps]. So we’ll get some rock information, we’ll get some ice. [details]”.
Jacobs led his Calgary-based team to victory over Winnipeg’s Matt Dunstone in the finals of the Canadian Curling Trials in Montana last weekend. Ottawa’s Homan beat local favorite Christina Black of Halifax for the women’s crown.
Skip Brad Jacobs talks about his team’s victory and representing Canada at the Milano-Cortina Winter Games.
‘Amazing feeling’ seeing hard work pay off
The three Olympic teams will participate in training camps in Europe before the start of the Games.
“It’s been a lot of hard work over the years to achieve some of these goals,” Gallant said. “So to see some of this come to fruition is an incredible feeling.”
Curling Canada used to prevent Canadian athletes from competing in both disciplines, preferring that curlers focus on a single competition and not risk becoming too fatigued.
Canada has won 12 Olympic medals in all curling events since 1998, but has not won team gold since the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia. Jacobs won the men’s gold that year and Jennifer Jones took the women’s crown.
John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes won gold when mixed doubles made its Olympic debut at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games in South Korea, but Canada did not win a four-way medal.
Jones missed the podium in the 2022 women’s team event in Beijing. Homan and Morris did not make the playoffs in mixed doubles and Brad Gushue won bronze in the men’s team competition.
Other countries have attempted the double in the Games. In 2022, Swede Oskar Eriksson took bronze in mixed doubles before winning men’s team gold with Niklas Edin.
Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat finished fourth in mixed doubles for Great Britain that year before Dodds won women’s gold with Eve Muirhead. Mouat later skipped the men’s team and took silver.
CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux sat down with Rachel Homan, who will be gunning for an Olympic medal after missing the curling podium in 2018 and the mixed doubles podium in 2022.
Olympic place secured last May
In 2018, American Matt Hamilton was sixth in mixed doubles before helping his four-man team, skipped by John Shuster, win men’s gold.
Gallant and Peterman won the mixed doubles heats last January. They secured Canada’s Olympic berth last May at the world championships.
“You have an athlete who can come in and feel comfortable in the place, [with the] ice conditions, they can read a lot of things, they feel comfortable in the athletic village and they just get comfortable,” said Curling Canada executive director Nolan Thiessen. “That could also help the rest of the team when they get there.
“Brett can say, ‘Okay, this is where we’re going,’ and there’s less of the unknown for them.”
The Olympic qualifying event, last chance to qualify for the Winter Games, begins Friday at the Kelowna Curling Club in B.C.
The competition will determine the last two places in the women’s, men’s and mixed doubles draws at the Milan Cortina Olympic Games.
Eight teams will play in both the women’s and men’s categories. Sixteen duos, divided into two groups, will compete in the mixed doubles modality.
The competition continues until December 18.
