Canadian curler Gushue emotional seeing family after painful Olympic loss

Brad Gushue had golden dreams for his curling crew.

He’ll have to shift his focus to a bronze goal.

Sweden’s Niklas Edin stole one in the 10th end to beat Gushue 5-3 in the semifinals on Thursday, relegating the Canadian to a chase for the bronze medal against John Shuster of the United States.

Gushue broke down when seeing his family on the Athlete Moment board after the match.

One of the rawest interviews I’ve ever seen from Brad Gushue. Tears in his eyes.

Watch the whole thing. When he goes to the virtual family screen.

And breaks down when he sees his family. At 1:35 mark.

He wanted it so bad for family and country.

pic.twitter.com/gpMMujDW7r

— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) February 17, 2022

“It’s disappointing, obviously,” an emotional Gushue told CBC afterwards. “Just before that rock made contact I thought we had it made… I thought we had that game. I really thought we battled hard and we were going to get it in the last end.

“It just didn’t work out.”

Gushue, who beat Edin to win the 2017 world championship in Edmonton, tried for a runback double to win instead of a draw to send it to an extra end.

He missed, and Edin advanced to the gold-medal match with the win. Canada will play for bronze.

“We’re going to need an hour or so to get over this one. Certainly the bronze medal is important to us. We’re going to be gunning just as hard tomorrow as we were today. But yeah, we need a moment.”

CBC broadcaster and former curling champ Colleen Jones suggested he might need a beer.

“I can’t really look at any shot in that game or any end in that game,” Gushue said. “I look back at the whole week. I think us not playing to our ability and giving him hammer is ultimately what it boiled down to. He was able to control the game. We could’ve had hammer in the first end, it’s a different situation. That’s how close these two teams are.”

Canada will face USA for bronze tonight at 1 am ET (Friday)/10 pm PT (Thursday).

Jennifer Jones, however, won’t play for a medal.

Canada missed the women’s curling playoff after Jones was eliminated via the sometimes controversial last stone draw tiebreaker, keeping Canada off the women’s curling podium for the second consecutive Games.

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.

We finished on a winning note but our final round robin result came up short of what we wanted for these Games.

We fought hard and never gave up.

It’s been an absolute privilege to compete at the Olympics for Canada.

Thank you for all the love, 🇨🇦.

📷: Stephen Fisher/WCF pic.twitter.com/Ask2IZdmeW

— Team Jennifer Jones (@TeamJJonesCurl) February 17, 2022

Canada finished with an average of 45.44 cm away from the button in the last stone draw, last in the 10-team field, which was ultimately the difference maker.

The disappointing end didn’t get in the way of Jones’ sportsmanship, however.

She was quick to congratulate Japan despite the setback on the Olympic stage.

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— 야그무🥌 (@tkbytk) February 17, 2022

“It was totally out of our control,” Jones told CBC. “You just kind of sit out there and obviously we’re hoping for results and it didn’t happen. It just didn’t work out the way we wanted it to.”

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