This coverage was first sent as an email newsletter to our subscribers. Sign up to receive it, for free, on our Ottawa at the Olympics page.
Newsletter by Keiran Gorsky, Dan Plouffe & Martin Cleary
After willing themselves into the women’s curling playoffs at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, the Rachel Homan Ottawa Curling Club rink’s resurgent gold medal hopes finally faded Friday. The Canadians fell to Sweden’s round robin-leading Team Anna Hasselborg (7-2) in the semi-finals by a score of 6-3.
“How are they? They’re heartbroken,” coach Heather Nedohin told The Canadian Press after the game. “Their dream was to be in the final, so right now, the feeling is heavy.”
Both teams had to grow re-accustomed to the unpredictable ice surface at Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium in the early goings. Team Homan were somewhat fortunate to trade points in the opening ends. The commentators on today’s CBC broadcast were convinced Homan would have to settle for a steal before she drew a brilliant stone through a small gap in the guard stones to score one in the second.
Sweden, who had the opening hammer thanks to their round robin finish, opted for an easy blank in the fifth so as to keep three of the five final hammers. Homan whiffed on a double on her penultimate shot of the sixth, giving Hasselborg a chance to score three – a chance narrowly missed when officials ruled a red stone marginally closer to the button.
“They were really sharp today, and we weren’t quite getting that specific placement,” underlined Homan, who was left with many high-difficulty shots that wound up just short of their optimal target.
Hasselborg layered guard upon guard in the seventh to prevent Canada from blanking. In perhaps the climactic shot of the game, Homan attempted an angle runback prayer for three points, but missed the near-impossible mark and gave a steal of one to Sweden.
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~ Advertisement ~~~~~~~~~
Down 5-2, with their game clock draining, the Canadians were forced into a slew of high-risk shots. Homan sought another low-probability hit and roll in a desperate attempt at two points on her final stone of the eighth, which only yielded a single point. Canada ran out of rocks in the final end as Sweden moved past the two-time reigning world champions.
“I think [Team Homan’s] approach was good in that they were trying to make all their shots. The problem was that Sweden had the same idea,” indicated past Homan coach Earle Morris in a call with the Ottawa Sports Pages’ Keiran Gorsky.
The 80-year-old Canadian Curling Hall of Famer is on site in Italy to cheer on his proteges, rooming at a nearby monastery.
“As their friend and former coach, you know, I don’t really talk about anything other than cheerleading,” laughed Morris, who coached Homan and Emma Miskew in their teens and 20s. “So I’ll send them a note saying, way to go, maybe with a Canadian flag or… a curling rock.”
So it goes, the most dominant team in curling in recent years will go at least another four years without an Olympic gold to their name. But Homan, Miskew and teammates Tracy Fleury and Sarah Wilkes still have the chance to claim their first Olympic medals when they play the United States’ Team Tabitha Peterson Saturday. Peterson won their round robin encounter 9-8.
“A hundred percent,” Morris replied when asked if he expected Canada to bounce back. “I expect a really good game from them tomorrow.”
Hannah Schmidt narrowly misses semis, Canadian women skunked in ski cross
Olympic ski cross racers have been waiting patiently for the first two weeks of Olympics to pass along. They were greeted with an anticipatory snowfall over Livigno Friday morning. With it came a simultaneous vigour and unflappable cool for second-time Olympian Hannah Schmidt.
“Definitely nerves but I think I was probably the most calm I’ve been racing,” Schmidt highlighted in an interview with Gorsky after her event. “Mentally and physically I think my body was feeling really good this morning… I was honestly just excited to kick out of the start gate.”
Schmidt spent her first week of the Winter Games on-site, in part for the sake of her national teammate Marielle Thompson, who was one of two Canadian flag bearers at opening ceremonies. After a quick training run, the team traveled west for a weeklong training camp at Val di Fassa, where they had competed at the World Cup heading into the new year.
They returned to Livigno on Saturday, where other freestyle skiing events in slopestyle and aerials were soon postponed due to substantially heavier snow. The ski cross team wasn’t able to train Thursday as it continued to accumulate. The weather relented, though the snow grew thick and slow, making for a taxing 1,100-metre trek through the park Friday morning.
“This track is, in general, not super fast, so it was a lot of work,” Schmidt explained. “Like, I got to the bottom each run and I was tired.”
With a seventh-place finish in Beijing and a smattering of top-10 results at this season’s FIS World Cup, Schmidt was thought to have an outside shot at a podium. After winning her first elimination round, she was placed in the quarter-finals with eventual silver medalist Fanny Smith of Switzerland, national teammate and 2018 Olympic silver medalist Brittany Phelan and France’s Jade Grillet-Aubert, only the top two advancing to the semi-finals.
Schmidt spent the bulk of the race tailing Smith, unable to make a move without risking a collision. Without the breakneck pace to advance, Schmidt opted to stay in Smith’s draft. With a lane opening on the outside, Grillet-Aubert found a burst of speed over the final stretch, surging past Schmidt around the final corner of track, claiming second place by 0.06 seconds. Schmidt finished 12th overall.
“It’s heart-wrenching,” Schmidt described the feeling of being overtaken at the last second. “When you’re coming down, you can kind of feel a presence… I could feel that there was someone there.”
As it turned out, Canadian women were left without a medal in the event for the first time in its 16-year Olympic history, Thompson finishing her quarter-final race in fourth.
Schmidt had a little more success against Smith earlier in the day. After a stumble relegated her to 14th place in the seeding run, she jumped out to a lead she never relinquished in the Round of 16, beating out Smith, Germany’s Leonie Bachl-Staudinger and Xuelian Zhang of China. Taken together, Schmidt is proud of her results on the day.
“Between the two heats, that was my best skiing this season,” maintained the West Carleton Secondary School and Carleton University grad.
Perhaps it helps to do it in front of so many friendly faces. Schmidt had the rare distinction of having family present in Beijing, her brother and fellow ski cross competitor Jared finding plenty of time to relax in the lounge with her in 2022. This time, Schmidt’s family, friends and partner were able to join the festivities, arriving in Italy just a few days ago.
With tears forming in her eyes after the quarter-finals, it was her little brother ready with a pep-talk.
“‘You couldn’t have done anything else in that heat,’” Jared Schmidt told her. “‘I haven’t seen you ski that well this season and I think that’s something to be proud of.’”
Schmidt can’t wait to support her brother in the men’s ski cross event Saturday morning.
In the women’s 1,500 m, speed skater Ivanie Blondin finished eighth with a final time of 1:54.93. She was 0.53 seconds short of her gold medal-winning pursuit teammate Valérie Maltais, who claimed her third medal at these Olympics with a third-place finish. Her childhood coach with the Gloucester Concordes Mike Rivet, as ever, cheered her on at a watch party – this time at Blondin’s old high school, École secondaire catholique Garneau.
“It wasn’t very long,” Rivet told the CBC when asked how long it took him to realize Blondin was special. “You would challenge her, and she would say ‘Oh yeah? Watch this.’ It’s the way it was with her.”
Blondin was paired with Switzerland’s Kaitlyn McGregor. Both skaters were in the green after their first lap. McGregor faded toward the end of their race, nearly falling over before the finish. Blondin, who equalled her World Cup ranking in the 1,500 m as she placed eighth, won the pairing by 0.47 seconds.
Ottawa Olympians in action on Feb. 21:
Day 15 Preview: Ski-cross racer Jared Schmidt aims to have everything line up at second Olympics
The sharp sound of the alarm clock pierces the prolonged quiet of the room as darkness gives way to daylight.
It’s race day.
Jared Schmidt eases out of bed to begin his trusted routine, which will take him to the top of a ski cross course with nervousness and excitement and hopefully down to the bottom with enough speed and safety to fill him with joy and laughter.
A short exercise routine awakens his body, which could be called upon to have as many as five races in quick succession on this day. Schmidt is familiar with this template as he has successfully completed multi-race days in the past on the World Cup circuit.
But Saturday will be markedly different.
It won’t have the flavour of a World Cup, a world championship or even a national championship. It’s a date that has long been etched on his calendar for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games men’s ski cross. It is his one and only day of competition and it arrives one day after his sister Hannah placed 12th for Canada in women’s ski cross in the second Olympics of the Dunrobin athletes’ careers.
For Schmidt to fuel his planned full day of four-man alpine-style racing over bumps and around sharp corners, he starts with a power breakfast of four eggs, fresh fruit, yogurt and black coffee.
Once fed, it’s time to put on his racing suit and gather his equipment – skis by Elan, poles by Leki, boots by Lange and goggles and helmet by Dainese.
A bus will take the 28-year-old and his peers to the bottom of the competition venue at the Livigno Snow Park. Time to put on the racing bib and snap on the skis, which have been carefully prepared by wax technicians, who have studied the snow conditions.
An hour before the seeding heat, which is an individual time trial down the course to rank the ski-cross racers No. 1 to No. 32, Schmidt will inspect the course. He will examine the course twice. One run will be at a slower, learning pace, while he’ll pick up the pace for the other course inspection.
When the course inspection is finished, it’s off to a neighbouring site for some final, pre-race training.
The qualifying seeding round goes first to determine the four members for each of the eight opening-round races. The top two athletes from each of the eight races will advance to the quarterfinals. The top two survivors from each of the next brackets will stay alive until the top four will go for the medals in the Big Final. The third- and fourth-place finishers in the two semifinals will race in the Small Final for positions fifth through eighth.
Since it can be a long day with pre-race preparations and one race after another for the survivors, Schmidt carries granola bars, apple sauce, a sandwich and a banana in his backpack for energy food.
But when it’s race time, it’s time to focus, clear your mind and wait for the starting gate to drop to see the racers charge down the course.
“It’s intense,” Schmidt said about his brief stay in the four-man start hut in a pre-Games interview with Ottawa Sports Pages High Achievers columnist Martin Cleary. “There are three other skiers and their coaches behind them. It’s hard to describe. Sometimes it feels like an hour, when you’re only there about 40 seconds.
“It’s cool to be in that zone. I try to calm my mind. On the course, you go for it, once the gate drops. It’s full on. You do your best to get in front through the traffic and navigate your way around. All the scenarios in your head never happen. You have to be super present and focus on the task at hand.”
Schmidt has won three World Cup gold medals and three bronze in his career. His lone appearance in the Big Final this World Cup season out of nine events came in Innichen, Italy when he placed fourth.
You can read this full feature on Schmidt here on OttawaSportsPages.ca.
Super Saturday for 8 Ottawa Olympians
On the second-last day of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, it will be the busiest day yet for Ottawa’s Olympic contingent with eight athletes in action and two solid podium prospects.
It has the makings of a historic day as perhaps Ottawa’s greatest athlete of all-time likely takes her final laps around a speed skating oval on Olympic ice.
Crowned Olympic champion for the second time in her career in Tuesday’s women’s team pursuit, and fresh off a solid eighth-place performance in today’s 1,500 m, Ivanie Blondin is now set to skate in her strongest individual event, the women’s mass start, in what will surely be an emotional day for the 35-year-old from the Gloucester Concordes.
Blondin has an exceptional track record in the 16-lap mass start, including two world championships gold medals and six silver. She has won 11 career World Cup mass starts, most recently in possibly her final race on home ice in Calgary, plus 21 silver and 10 bronze.
Of course, anything can happen in the unpredictable mass start, and Blondin will certainly receive strong challenges from the likes of USA’s Mia Manganello, The Netherlands’ Marijke Groenewoud and Canadian teammate Valérie Maltais, who will be shooting for her fourth podium of the Games.
Unlike the usual World Cup format, Blondin will first have to race a semifinal, which tripped her up in the discipline’s 2018 Olympic debut when she caught the inner track for a quick moment and wiped out to miss the final. Her 2022 Olympic mass start went much, much better as she completed her “redemption Games” with a silver medal.
Blondin, who has always excelled in the event that resembles her short track speed skating roots, has the chance to join fellow speed skating greats Kristina Groves and Isabelle Weidemann as Ottawa’s most decorated Olympians of all-time at four career medals should she make the podium.
After missing out on a chance to go for gold with Friday’s semi-final loss to Sweden, the Rachel Homan Ottawa Curling Club rink still has a chance to finish its rollercoaster Olympics on a high.
Homan, who is a childhood friend of Blondin’s, and fellow Ottawa-raised curler Emma Miskew, Tracy Fleury and Sarah Wilkes will have the chance to win the first Olympic medals of their careers when they play in the bronze medal match Saturday.
It could be Canada’s first podium in women’s curling since Jennifer Jones, who was Team Homan’s coach for a short period, won gold in 2014.
Homan’s adversaries in the bronze medal match will be Tabitha Peterson’s Team USA, who started Canada’s dip to three straight defeats when they prevailed 9-8 in their preliminary round meeting. It was only the second time in 14 meetings that Peterson topped Homan.
The Olympic bobsleigh programme will finish with the always-anticipated four-man event, featuring Ottawa products Keaton Bruggeling, Jay Dearborn and Mike Evelyn O’Higgins.
While it is fairly unreasonable to expect the Canadians to contend with the high-tech, high-powered and well-funded Germans, Canada is capable of some of the best start times in the world and could be a contender for the unofficial push-start podium.
And following a very strong sixth-place showing in Wednesday’s men’s team sprint free event, Gatineau’s Antoine Cyr will have the opposite type of cross-country skiing test as he tackles the marathon men’s 50 km mass start classic.
~ SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM ~
We need your help to keep producing the local sports news you can’t find anywhere else!
