Curling at the 2026 Winter Olympics: What to expect from Team USA

There’s a bit of a youth movement taking place on Team USA heading into the 2026 Winter Olympics, at least in one sport: curling.

For most of the last two decades, John Shuster has represented the United States on the men’s curling team; Shuster was on Team USA in every Olympics dating back to 2006, playing lead and winning a bronze medal in Torino before becoming the team’s skip for Vancouver 2010 and leading the squad in each of the last four Olympic Games. After years of frustration, Team Shuster delivered the biggest moment in American curling history in 2018, upsetting the highly-favored Swedish team led by Niklas Edin to win a gold medal in Pyeongchang.

This year, however, there are new kids on the block. 

Daniel Casper led his team to a victory over Team Shuster in the U.S. Olympic Trials last month, sending him and his squad of 20-somethings to Milan-Cortina to represent Team USA in the 2026 Olympic Games. Meanwhile, women’s skip Tabitha Peterson makes her third consecutive Olympic Games, though the members of her team are all between 30 and 36 years old and the lineup has changed over time. Then there’s the mixed doubles team, consisting of a 30-year-old and a 31-year-old who are both making their first Olympic appearances.

Although the Men’s and Women’s tournaments get the most attention, Mixed Doubles curling actually got the sport underway, with action beginning on Wednesday, February 4.

Here’s a look at who is representing Team USA on all three squads, how they qualified for the Winter Olympics, and the schedules for all of Team USA’s matches over the next two weeks. All matches will be available across the United States on the NBC family of TV networks or on Peacock, NBC’s streaming service.

Mixed Doubles Curling

Who is representing Team USA?

Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin make up Team USA’s mixed doubles curling team. Team Cory and Korey have a fun social media presence, but they are also one of the top teams in the tournament; they won the Mixed Doubles World Championships in 2023 and are currently ranked as the #6 team in the world. 

The Thiesse/Dropkin pairing earned automatic qualification for the Milan-Cortina Olympics based on the USA’s combined rankings in the 2024 and 2025 World Championships. After winning gold in 2023, Thiesse and Dropkin failed to make the 2024 Championships, falling to brother-sister duo Matt and Becca Hamilton at the USA National Championship that year. However, they returned to Worlds in 2025, held in New Brunswick, Canada. They went 6-3 in the round-robin and made the playoffs, losing in the first round to Scotland. However, they defeated Canada’s Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant in a consolation game played for rankings purposes and that match may well have clinched their automatic berth at these Olympics. Notably, Thiesse led all players at that tournament by shooting an impressive 90.3%.

Thiesse (31) and Dropkin (30) both call the Duluth Curling Club home and both curl on competitive Women’s and Men’s teams, respectively. Thiesse will also be participating later on in Cortina as the Vice on the Team USA Women’s team, while Dropkin’s team finished third at November’s US Men’s Olympic Trials in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

What are their medal chances?

Coming into the Olympics, Team USA was among the favorites to compete for a medal in Mixed Doubles, with Thiesse/Dropkin ranked third in the current rankings among the teams competing at the Olympics and 7th overall. They delivered on their impressive resume, earning a spot in the medal round with the round-robin portion of the competition now complete.

Team USA finished as one of the top qualifiers in the initial phase, earning the #3 spot in the semifinals. Thiesse and Dropkin got out to a blistering 4-0 start, defeating possible medal candidates Norway and Switzerland in their first two matches, before dropping a pair of matches on Saturday to #1 seed Great Britain and South Korea. They swept (pun intended) Sunday’s matches, winning close games against Estonia and Sweden before finishing up early on Monday morning with a loss against Italy.

All four semifinal teams (Great Britain, Italy, USA, and Sweden) clinched their spots prior to the final round-robin session early on Monday morning, with only the seeding left to be determined. Italy’s victory over USA in that session gave them the 2nd seed and sets up a rematch in the semis a few hours later, with USA finishing out as #3. Meanwhile, Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds of Scotland (which formally represents Great Britain at the Olympics) earned the top seed, going 9-0 in the round-robin, while Sweden finished 4th with a 5-4 record. The winners of the two semifinals will play for the Gold medal, with the losers facing off for the Bronze.

Team GB are the heavy favorites for Gold at this point, but Cory and Korey did what they needed to in the round-robin to give themselves a great chance to deliver on their medal projections coming into the Olympics.

Dates

• Round Robin: Wednesday, 4 February through Monday, 9 February
• Semifinals: Monday, 9 February (18:05 local, 12:05 PM Eastern Time)
  • 1 v 4: Great Britain vs. Sweden
  • 2 v 3: Italy vs. USA
• Bronze Medal Match: Tuesday, 10 February (14:05 local, 8:05 AM ET)
• Gold Medal Match: Tuesday, 10 February (18:05 local, 12:05 PM ET)

Team USA Mixed Doubles Round Robin Schedule

Men’s Curling

Who is Representing Team USA?

After multiple Olympic cycles dominated by Team Shuster, a different and younger team will represent Team USA in Cortina. 

• Skip: Daniel Casper
• Third: Luc Violette
• Second: Ben Richardson
• Lead: Aidan Oldenburg
• Alternate: Rich Ruohonen

All four primary members of Team Casper are 27 years old or younger. The team formally hails from the Chaska Curling Club in the greater Twin Cities area, and are led by the 24-year-old Casper, a native of Briarcliff Manor, New York (just outside New York City). He, Violette (also 24), and Richardson (27) began curling together in 2022; they had a different lead for a few years, then added Oldenburg (24) to the lineup after the 2024 National Championships, when they lost to Team Shuster in the semifinals.

There is an experienced presence on this team, however. The alternate, Ruohonen, is a veteran at 54 years old and threw third for two different US National Championship winning teams: Craig Brown’s team in 2008 and Greg Persinger’s 2018 squad. Additionally, Ruohonen played on a team with Tyler George for several years in the early 2010s before George joined Team Shuster and earned an Olympic gold in 2018.

Team Casper upset Shuster’s current squad at the US Olympic Trials last November, winning a thrilling best-of-3 final playoff after losing both games the two teams played in the round-robin. With Team USA not earning an automatic spot in the Olympics, Casper’s team went to the Olympic Qualification Event in Kelowna, British Columbia last December, where they went 6-1 in the round-robin and defeated China in the first playoff match to earn the top qualifying spot for Milan-Cortina.

What are their medal chances?

While not among the favorites to medal in Cortina, Team Casper could be a bit of a wild card among an experienced group of teams. They ran a gauntlet to even make it to Cortina, and that experience (including against a Gold medal-winning skip in Shuster) should give them confidence heading into next week.

Favorites in the field include Canada, skipped by 2014 Gold medalist Brad Jacobs, Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat (who is on track for a medal in mixed doubles and who led his men’s team to a Silver medal in 2022), and defending Gold medalists Niklas Edin and Sweden. Team Casper is not viewed to be among that group of teams just yet, but they are a bit of an unknown and could shake up the medal round if they get on a hot streak.

Dates

• Round Robin: Wednesday, 11 February through Thursday, 19 February
• Semifinals: Thursday, 19 February (19:05 local, 1:05 PM ET)
• Bronze Medal Match: Friday, 20 February (19:05 local, 1:05 PM ET)
• Gold Medal Match: Saturday, 21 February (19:05 local, 1:05 PM ET)

Team USA Men’s Round Robin Schedule

Women’s Curling

Who is representing Team USA?

Tabitha Peterson leads Team USA’s Women’s Curling squad as the Skip for the third straight Olympic Games. Her younger sister, Tara, joins for the second cycle in a row, throwing second, but the team added two new members since 2022: Vice Cory Thiesse (who is the female member of Team USA’s Mixed Doubles team) and lead Taylor Anderson-Heide.

• Skip: Tabitha Peterson
• Vice: Cory Thiesse
• Second: Tara Peterson
• Lead: Taylor Anderson-Heide

Like the Men’s team, the Peterson rink earned their spot in Milan-Cortina through the Olympic Qualification Event, joining Japan as the two qualifying countries. Team Peterson finished third in the round-robin but defeated Norway in a winner-take-all match for the last qualification spot.

What are their medal chances?

Honestly, they’re not great. As mentioned above, Team USA was the last team in, and they will need to navigate a round-robin that features a lot of star power.

Canada and Rachel Homan’s team are widely viewed as the best team in the world, while the Swiss team led by Silvana Tirinzoni are very much in that mix as well and should be a top medal competitor. Sweden’s team should also be in contention, with skip Anna Hasselborg making her third straight Olympics and winning Gold in 2018.

Great Britain are the defending Gold medalists; however, Eve Muirhead, their skip in 2022, retired from competitive curling later that year. 29-year-old Sophie Jackson out of Aberdeen leads their women’s squad into Cortina in her first Olympic appearance, though her newer team is also a threat, having finished second at the 2025 World Championships.

Dates

• Round Robin: Thursday, 12 February through Thursday, 19 February
• Semifinals: Friday, 20 February (14:05 local, 8:05 AM ET)
• Bronze Medal Match: Friday, 21 February (14:05 local, 8:05 AM ET)
• Gold Medal Match: Sunday, 22 February (11:05 local, 5:05 AM ET)

Team USA Women’s Round Robin Schedule

Evan Western is a contributor to SB Nation and a Managing Editor at Acme Packing Company, the SB Nation community for the Green Bay Packers. He has been curling out of the Columbus Curling Club in Columbus, Ohio for the last 15 years.