Fleury remains confident after U.S. ends Canadian women’s Olympic curling win streak
Don’t panic, cautions Tracy Fleury, always a voice of calmness and reasoning; Friday’s Team Canada loss to the United States in women’s curling at Milano Cortina 2026 isn’t the end of the world.
It is, however, the end of Canada’s perfect 8-0 winning record against the U.S. in women’s Olympic curling.
“We had a bad end,” Fleury said after Tabitha Peterson’s U.S. team scored four in the sixth end and went on to beat Rachel Homan’s Team Canada 9-8. “It’s hard to win a game when you give up four. We tried our best to come back. When we lose a game it sometimes fires us up, so we’re not worried yet.”
Peterson, who had beaten Homan only once in 13 previous career games, took advantage of surprisingly inconsistent shooting by Team Canada to etch her name in U.S. curling history. It wasn’t a particularly great shooting game for the Americans, either, but they made enough key shots at the right time while Canada couldn’t do that often enough.
Homan, Fleury, second Emma Miskew and lead Sarah Wilkes showed plenty of grit and determination to try to regain control after the disastrous sixth, but their own inability to make shots they normally would never miss cost them in the end.
“We fought the whole way and gave ourselves a chance,” an obviously disappointed Homan said. “Lots of games left and we’ll take lessons from that game.”
Both teams struggled right from the beginning of the game. At the fifth-end break Canada was curling a shockingly low combined 77 percent. Homan was at 74 and only Fleury at 81 was above 80 percent. The U.S. wasn’t much better at a team combined 82 percent and Peterson at 78.
By the end of the game Canada’s average was 76 percent; Homan was 74 and her three teammates were all at 76 percent. The U.S. team shot 83 percent; Peterson was 78 but the rest of her team was above 80 percent.
Consequently, there were opportunities created and then lost throughout the game. Even runbacks, usually automatic for Homan and her teammates, weren’t working with any consistency.
The erratic shooting led to sudden shifts in momentum not only end to end, but at times, shot to shot. After Canada blanked the first end, they opened the scoring with two in the second on a Homan draw after Peterson got only one Canadian stone on her attempt at a double.
The U.S. was in trouble in the third after two misses by Cory Thiesse left Canada sitting five. Peterson made two shots to bail out her team, a successful raise and a draw for one.
The U.S. flipped the scenario in four, jumping on half misses by Team Canada that forced Homan to try a difficult triple with her final stone. She got only two, giving up a steal to Peterson.
Team Canada got one back in five before the U.S. jumped all over consecutive misses by Miskew and Fleury and a failed triple attempt by Homan to score four in the sixth. With her last rock Homan tried a double and stick but got only one U.S. stone and her shooter rolled out. That left Peterson an easy draw for the four.
Canada got two back in the seventh and when the U.S. elected to take one in eight instead of blanking the end, Homan jumped on the chance to have the hammer in nine. Homan’s front end created the chance to score three and Canada got that when Peterson jammed on one double try and was wide on a second, leaving Homan an open draw to regain the lead.
Team USA made sure having last rock in ten was the right move by scoring two for the win.
Canada will play Great Britain Saturday afternoon.
In the other fourth draw games, Denmark (Madeleine Dupont) lost 6-5 to Sweden (Anna Hasselborg); China (Wang Rui) dropped a 7-5 decision to Switzerland (Silvana Tirinzoni); and Great Britain (Rebecca Morrison) was beaten 9-3 by Korea (Gim Eun-ji).
The results left Sweden leading the standings at 3-0 followed by Switzerland 2-0, Korea and the U.S. 2-1, Canada and China 1-1, Denmark 1-2 and Great Britain, Italy and Japan all at 0-2.