Brett Gallant will make history at the Milan Cortina Olympics when he becomes the first Canadian curler to compete in two disciplines at the same Winter Games.
It’s a development that should also negate the advantage some other countries have enjoyed at previous Olympics when their athletes played in mixed doubles and four-player competitions.
Curling Canada changed its policy for this quadrennial to allow players to compete in both events. In addition to giving curlers an opportunity for two chances at the podium, it gives teams valuable insight into the ice, rocks and conditions in game scenarios.
“We would love to have our training camp on the Olympic ice ahead of the Olympics,” said Team Jacobs coach Paul Webster. “Brett just gets to do that for us. So we’re super excited.”
Competition opens at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium with mixed doubles. Gallant and partner Jocelyn Peterman will begin play Feb. 4.
Gallant will then join his Canadian men’s team skipped by Brad Jacobs for their opening game a week later. The Canadian women’s team skipped by Rachel Homan starts Feb. 12.
“Rarely in any other sport would you have an advanced scout in the event ahead of you on the actual playing field, [in our case it’s] ice conditions,” Webster said. “Brett is an extremely intelligent player in terms of ice reading, strategy, rocks, all that stuff.
“Having [mixed doubles coaches] Scott Pfeifer and Laine Peters in their corner to help track [also helps]. So, we’ll get some rock information, we’ll get some ice [details].”
Jacobs guided his Calgary-based side to victory over Winnipeg’s Matt Dunstone in the final at the Montana’s Canadian Curling Trials last weekend. Homan, from Ottawa, beat hometown favourite Christina Black of Halifax for the women’s crown.
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All 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 get to achieve some of these goals,” Gallant said. “So to see some of it pay off, it’s an amazing feeling.”
Curling Canada used to prevent Canadian athletes from competing in both disciplines, preferring to have curlers focus on a single competition and not risk getting overly fatigued.
Canada has won 12 Olympic medals across all curling events since 1998 but has not won team gold since the 2014 Sochi Games in Russia. Jacobs won 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-player medal.
Jones missed the podium in the women’s team event in 2022 at Beijing. Homan and Morris didn’t make the playoffs in mixed doubles and Brad Gushue earned bronze in the men’s team competition.
Other countries have tried the double at the Games. In 2022, Sweden’s Oskar Eriksson earned mixed doubles bronze before winning men’s team gold with skip Niklas Edin.
Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat finished fourth in mixed doubles for Britain that year before Dodds won women’s gold with Eve Muirhead. Mouat later skipped his men’s team to silver.
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In 2018, American Matt Hamilton was sixth in mixed doubles before helping his four-player team skipped by John Shuster win men’s gold.
Gallant and Peterman won the mixed doubles trials last January. They secured Canada’s Olympic berth last May at the world championship.
“You’ve got an athlete who gets to go in and get comfortable in the venue, [with the] ice conditions, they get to read a bunch of things, they get comfortable in the athlete village and just get their feet under them,” said Curling Canada chief executive officer Nolan Thiessen. “That might help the rest of the team when they get there too.
“Brett can be like, ‘OK this is where we go’ and there’s less of that unknown for them.”
The Olympic qualification event, a last-chance qualifier for the Winter Games, begins Friday at the Kelowna Curling Club in B.C.
The competition will determine the final two places in the women’s, men’s and mixed doubles draws for the Milan Cortina Olympics.
Eight teams will play in both the women’s and men’s events. Sixteen duos, divided into two groups, will contest the mixed doubles.
Competition continues through Dec. 18.
