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Friday, March 29, 2024

Great curling season for Einarson

By Jim Bender 

One of the most successful seasons any Canadian curler has ever accomplished may have ended in slight disappointment, but it is one that will be celebrated for years. 

Gimli’s ‘Golden Girl’ Kerri Einarson and her partner, Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue, just barely failed to medal at the 2021 World Mixed Doubles Championship in Aberdeen, Scotland on Sunday. 

Sweden’s Almida de Val and Oskar Eriksson defeated the Canadian reps 7-4 in the bronze medal game. 

“It’s been an honour to represent Canada on the world stage,” Einarson told Curling Canada. “We gave it our absolute all this week and I couldn’t be more proud of us for earning Canada the Olympic spot. We fought hard every game. We may not have played our best at times, but we also never gave up.” 

Einarson and Gushue needed to finish in the top seven to capture a mixed doubles berth for Canada in the 2022 Winter Olympics, which they did by making it to the qualification round. 

“There was no doubt we were tired and not at our best,” Gushue said. “But we left it all on the ice and that’s all you can ask for. We’re disappointed not to earn a medal, but we are proud to have earned an Olympic spot for Canada.” 

Scotland, which had beaten Canada in a semifinal, won the world championship. 

To sum up her season, Einarson won her second straight gold medal at the Canadian women’s championship, a gold medal in the national mixed doubles with Gushue, the Grand Slam Players’ Championship, and also earned an Olympic berth for Canada at the world women’s championship, despite failing to medal there. 

That success compares favourably to both Manitoba’s Jennifer Jones, who won Olympic gold in 2014, and Saskatchewan’s Sandra Schmirler, who won gold at the 1998 Olympics, then returned home to come close to winning her fourth national women’s championship. 

BITER – Shannon Birchard, the second for Kerri Einarson, won her third national women’s championship earlier this year, which puts her in rather elite company. Birchard, who won the 2018 Scotties as a replacement third for Jennifer Jones, is already in the top 10 of Manitoba women’s curlers. Only Jones (six), Jill Officer (six), Cathy Overton-Clapham (five) and Dawn Askin (five) have more. Connie Laliberte, Janet Arnott and Cathy Gauthier have three each. 

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