A delicate tap did the business
[With files from Curling Canada]
Canada’s Team Rachel Homan tied a record set by the great Sandra Schmirler foursome by defeated Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni 7-3 in Sunday’s gold-medal game at the 2025 world women’s championship.
The victory at South Korea’s Uijeongbu Arena marks back-to-back world titles for Homan, Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes and they are the first Canadians to repeat as world champions since Schmirler’s team in 1993 and 1994.
It’s also a third world title for Homan and Miskew after previous wins in 2017 and 2024. The longtime pals—who first competed as bantam-age youths—now stand alongside Schmirler and her teammates Jan Betker, Joan McCusker and Marcia Gudereit as the only other Canadians to win three women’s world championships.
Team Schmirler captured its third crown in 1997, just a year before their Olympic glory at Nagano 1998.
The key blow wasn’t a typical Homan howitzer takeout—although there were plenty of those—but rather a delicate promotion. It happened in the eighth end with Canada up by one, and Swiss fourth thrower Alina Paetz overcurled her next draw attempt and clipped a guard, handing Canada a steal of two and a three-point lead.
The Canadians stole another point in the ninth, prompting Switzerland to concede.
“It was just huge to lie two and put the pressure on her,” said Fleury. “Thankfully, we got a miss. We don’t get misses out of Alina ever, so we tried to put the pedal down and take advantage of that.”
Homan’s win capped a resilient week. The Canadians finished the round robin at 10-2, placing third. Without a bye to the semifinals, they battled through a qualification win over Scotland. Then they needed a double takeout in the semifinal against South Korea to force an extra end, eventually punching their ticket to the final.
“This week was a grind, a ton of games back-to-back,” said Homan. “I know we’re exhausted, but we know we had one more game in us. We knew we were going to have to battle hard against Alina.”
It is the first time a Canadian men’s or women’s team has won a gold medal overseas at a world championship since Homan and Miskew’s victory in 2017 at Beijing.
It marked the second straight year Homan and Tirinzoni—the world’s top two-ranked women’s fours squads—met in the world final.
As in this week’s round robin, Canada defeated the Swiss in last year’s round-robin, a victory which ended the Swiss team’s unreal 42-game winning streak at the worlds.
Homan’s appearance in last year’s final broke a six-year streak where no Canadians had made a world women’s fours final since Jennifer Jones in 2018.
Earlier Sunday, Team Rui Wang served notice that China is back at the highest level by defeating hometown favourites Team Eun-ji Gim of South Korea 9-4 to win the bronze medal.