The Winnipeg Free Press Online Edition – New selection system a help for U.S. curlers
Mon Jan 9 2006
By Paul Wiecek
CALGARY’S Shannon Kleibrink was a convincing winner in her pre-Olympic battle with the U.S.A.’s Cassie Johnson at the MTS Centre yesterday.
But the war over which country — Canada or the U.S. — has the better system for choosing their Olympic curling representatives will have to be settled on the ice next month at the Winter Olympics in Turin.
Kleibrink pummelled Johnson 11-4 in an exhibition game between the two Olympic curling representatives that was staged as a companion event to yesterday afternoon’s men’s semi-finals of the Canadian Open.
Kleibrink was clearly the best yesterday in a game that saw Johnson struggle with her draw weight, including a throw-through in the seventh that cost her team a four-ender.
Afterward, both teams downplayed the game’s significance, saying it proves nothing when it comes to who’s got the better team heading into Turin. While there was no question about who was the better team yesterday, the debate over which country has the best system for picking its Olympic teams continues to simmer.
Canada has always selected its Olympic teams in a Trials event that takes place just two months before the Olympics.
That’s the same system the Americans also used prior to the 1998 and 2002 Olympics.
But after complaints from American teams that the system did not allow Olympics-bound teams enough time to prepare for the Games and deal with the whirlwind of activity that also goes with winning an Olympics berth, the Americans are using a new system, which saw Johnson win her berth in March 2005.
The move proved to be prescient when Johnson won, giving the Americans almost a full year to groom a skip who was curling juniors just four years ago and was lacking both international and big-game experience.
Rob Meakin, a world-champion second with Kerry Burtnyk’s 1995 squad, has been part of the American team that’s coached Johnson for the past year. He said yesterday the extra time has proven invaluable.
“I think it’s been really good for them, particularly because they’re such a young team,” said Meakin, noting the extra time has allowed the Americans the luxury of shipping Johnson off to all kinds of international bonspiels and giving her the chance to play in last year’s Womens World Curling Championship.
Johnson finished second at the 2005 worlds to Sweden’s Anette Norberg — the gold-medal favourite in Turin — and Meakin says that experience was a big confidence booster.
In addition to the worlds, the Johnson team has also used the last 11 months to get a taste of European curling at a bonspiel in Norway and to visit the Olympic curling venue in Pinerolo, just outside Turin. Johnson said the chance to play yesterday before the biggest curling crowd she’s ever seen was also a plus heading into the Olympics.
“It gives us a lot better idea of how it will be in Torino,” she said.
The advance trip to Pinerolo and the chance to slowly build their teams towards the Olympics are luxuries not afforded to Kleibrink or fellow Canadian curling representative Brad Gushue, who’ve both been besieged since winning the Trials last month with media requests, training sessions and meetings with Canadian Olympic officials.
Like Johnson, both Kleibrink and Gushue are light on international experience and, on the surface, a little extra time to get them some seasoning certainly wouldn’t have hurt.
Kleibrink will get some 11th-hour European curling experience this weekend at a bonspiel in Switzerland, then move on at the end of the month to curl in the Canada Cup in Kamloops, an event that will also include Gushue.
The two teams will then go almost directly from Kamloops to Turin.
But while Gushue complained last week that he was finding it difficult to find time for curling with all the other new demands on his team, Kleibrink said she’s found the schedule manageable.
“It hasn’t been as bad as many people think,” Kleibrink said.
Indeed, the Kleibrink team wasn’t too busy to take time out last month to fulfil a promise the team made to each other prior to the Trials — a set of Olympic tattoos they now all sport on their calves. Kleibrink added that there’s also a downside to the American system. “I don’t know if I’d want all (the demands on her time) for 10 months,” she said.
She said she feels as prepared as she’ll ever be and wishes she could play the Olympics right now, fresh off last month’s Trials win — a momentum advantage proponents say the Canadian system gives its teams.
Kleibrink added she has no problem with the high expectations Canadians have of their Olympic curling teams.
“I think it’s fair for them to think whichever team won the Trials will come home with gold,” said Kleibrink. “Come on — it’s Canada.”
© 2006 Winnipeg Free Press. All Rights Reserved.
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
You must log in to post a comment.