Nation’s first 2026 Olympians are curlers
[With files from World Curling]
While Canada lost their last round-robin match 8-7 to Scotland, the host nation still qualified for the playoffs at the World Mixed Doubles Championship in Fredericton, N.B.
Once the full field of playoff teams was known, the math revealed that Jocelyn Peterman and husband Brett Gallant had clinched an Olympic berth for Canada in the Mixed Doubles discipline.
As Olympic Trials champions back in early January, the duo will be nominated by Curling Canada to compete at Cortina d’Ampezzo next February—and official confirmation from the Canadian Olympic Committee could come as early as Monday.
That would make Peterman and Gallant the first athletes in any sport discipline to join Canada’s 2026 Olympic squad.
Wearing the red and white in Italy would make both athletes two-time Olympians. Both competed at Beijing in 2022, Gallant with men’s fours bronze winners Team Brad Gushue and Peterman with women’s fifth-place finishers Team Jennifer Jones.
Also expected to qualify for Cortina are Great Britain—represented by Scotland at curling’s world championships—Norway, Estonia and Sweden, while Italy holds a berth as host nation.
USA, Switzerland and Australia are fighting for two Olympic berths and the playoff results will decide each nation’s fates.
World Curling will formally announce the Olympic qualifications at or near the conclusion of the championship.
The magic has continued for Italy’s Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner, the defending Olympic champions who are competing in Fredericton for the first time since Beijing. The Italians ran their record to 9-0 to secure their spot at the top of the rankings in Group A, earning them a direct berth in the semifinals.
Australia’s Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt finished top of Group B with an 8-1 won/loss record and also advance directly to the semifinals.
The semifinal round gets underway on Friday, May 2 at 18:00.
The quarterfinal round (May 2 at 10:00) will see Canada (7-2) take on Estonia (6-3) for their chance to battle Italy in one semifinal.
Scotland (7-2) will face United States (6-3) in the other qualification game. The winner will then advance to the semi against Australia.
The playoff matches and the archived round-robin games can be viewed at the Curling Channel, operated by World Curling.
Scotland had clinched second place behind Italy in Group A with the extra end win over Canada, a game that went all the way to an umpire’s measurement on the final stone. The result meant Canada finished third in Group A.
To reach third place in Group B and the playoffs, United States defeated Spain by 10-2 in their final must-win round-robin match—then had to hope their Last Stone Draw numbers were enough to pull them through.
Estonia also had to make a charge to finish second in Group B, after losing 10-9 to Norway before defeating Czechia 6-5 in an extra end.
The Aussies sealed their place at the top of Group B with solid wins over Spain and new Zealand to complete their pool matches.
Norway, Sweden and Switzerland finished out of the playoff picture.
Spain and Nethlerlands have been relegated to next season’s World Mixed Doubles Qualification Event. Four other teams—Denmark, Türkiye, China and Czechia—will compete in relegation games with the winners remaining in next year’s A-division and the losers dropping into the WMDQE.
Two nations will have a chance to grab the final Olympic berths in Cortina at the Olympic Qualifying Event in Kelowna, B.C. this coming fall.