Curling, Men

The destination of the gold medal at Salt Lake City was fated to be decided between Canada, the perennial powerhouses of curling, and the Swedish rink that had won the 2001 world championships beating the Canucks on the way. The clash between the two nations in the round-robin once again resulted in a Swedish victory but the Canadians were more consistent throughout and ended the qualifying round with an 8-1 record and top seeding for the semi-finals.

Peja Lindholm’s Swedish team qualified fourth to set up another meeting with Canada – this time for a place in the Olympic final. Canada-Sweden was a tight match with the play of Canadian skip Kevin Martin becoming the decisive factor towards the end of the match as Canada won by 6 shots to 4. The other finalists were Pål Trulsen’s Norwegian team which had survived a series of tight matches to contest the gold medal. Norway had needed to fight back from a 3 shot disadvantage after eight of ten ends in the semi-final against defending champion Switzerland but had rallied to win by a single shot.

It was Canada that needed to make a comeback in the final as Norway took a three shot advantage early in the match but the Canadians did fight back and levelled the score at five-five going into the final end. The fate of the Olympic title came down to the final shot of the final end as the two teams were level on five apiece with Norway holding the winning stone but with Kevin Martin still to play. Martin’s stone took the right line but was fractionally too heavy and slipped past the required mark to ensure a surprise Norwegian victory. This was rather hard to see on TV, as the shot came from above, with Trulsen brushing above the stone, which was not visible on camera. Trulsen’s cheering was both visible and audible.