Canada eliminated from Olympic women's curling on excruciating tiebreaker
If there are three words that skip Jennifer Jones and the rest of Canadian women’s curling team will never forget, it’s “last stone draw.”
Jones’ rink was eliminated from the Beijing Olympics via the sometimes controversial tiebreaker, with Canada missing the women’s curling podium for the second consecutive Games.
Prior to each curling match, skips throw a single rock towards the button, with the closer team winning the “hammer,” or the right to throw the last shot in the first end.
Jones’ team finished 5-4 at the Olympics in the round robin, the same record as Great Britain and Japan. In a three-way tie with Canada beating Great Britain, Great Britain beating Japan, and Japan beating Canada, it came down to the last stone draw challenge.
Canada finished with an average of 45.44 cm away from the button in the last stone draw, last in the ten team field, which was ultimately the difference maker.
Canada won its final match 10-4 against Denmark in eight ends, but was left sitting around in the rink watching the results of the other three concurrent matches.
Canada got two of the three results needed with Switzerland and Great Britain winning, but a 8-4 win by Sweden over Korea ultimately sealed the Canadians’ fate.
Hereās what needs to happen during this curling draw.
First. Canada needs to win.
And then get some help. Here are the scenarios: pic.twitter.com/VYiSkvZ0aU
— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) February 17, 2022
“We went and won our game, it just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to,” Jones told CBC’s Colleen Jones following the match.
In many major tournaments ā such as the Canadian national championship (commonly known as the Scotties) or world championship ā a tiebreaker game may be used in a similar scenario. But with the Olympics’ tight format having just two semifinals and medal games, Canada got the short end of the stick by nature of their last stone draw scores.
“It was out of our control,” Jones said. “Obviously we’re hoping for a result and it didn’t happen.”
Canada is now 1-3 when it comes to advancing to curling playoffs at the Olympics, with the men’s team making it but the mixed doubles team also missing out.
Jones herself was the last skip to lead Canada to a women’s curling gold, landing atop the podium at Sochi 2014.
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