Canadian curling tests spotlight a compact Olympic games weekend

Key takeaways:

The contest will be intense at one of the world’s finest qualifiers.
Brad Gushue is honoured to acquire the Canadian Olympic men’s curling trials, but he’ll go by a gauntlet to do it.

Canadian curling tests:

Get ready for All of the winter Olympic sports this weekend

That’s only a small improvement. After a relatively quiet several weeks on the winter sports schedule, it quickly looks like everything is working on at once. Get used to it. From here on out it’s full-steam forward to the Beijing Olympics, which formally open 11 weeks from today.

The marquee game this weekend is Canada’s Olympic curling trials — may be the most talked-about (and cutthroat) qualifier in the world. There’s also a star-studded Grand Prix of Figure Skating end, and we’ll see if Canada’s speed skaters can catch up on their heavenly inception to the World Cup season.

Curling: Canadian Olympic trials’

The matches to decide who will represent Canada in the men’s and women’s results in Beijing get started Saturday in Saskatoon and end next Sunday (the mixed doubles trials are in January).

In current years, there’s been some discussion about how the remainder of the world has “caught up” to Canada in curling, and the proceeds back that to an area. The sport’s various great governments neglected to gain a medal in either the men’s or women’s games at the last Winter Olympics — the first time that’s occurred — and hasn’t won a world cup since 2018. But Canada’s pitch continues the gold model, and that’s why the tests are so compelling.

Nine men’s and nine women’s teams are playing in Saskatoon, and arguably near to half of them would be chosen to gain Olympic gold if they gain it.