21 February 2026
Canada secure bronze at Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games
Canada beat United States of America in Saturday afternoon’s game by 10-7, to claim the women’s Olympic bronze medals.
United States of America started the game with last stone advantage and opened the scoring in the first end when skip Tabitha Peterson played a tap-back off a Canadian stone sitting on the button.
When Canada’s skip Rachel Homan came to play her last stone of the second end, she was facing three American counters, but she managed to hit and stay, to score one and level the game to 1-1.
In the third end, Canada’s Homan put both of her stones on the button, and this forced Peterson to play a precision draw, eventually nudging both Canadian stones slightly to sit inside them and score one from the end, for a 2-1 lead.
In the fourth end, the Americans elected to freeze Peterson’s last stone onto the counting Canada stone sitting on the button, aiming to restrict Canada to just one point. This tactic paid off when Homan’s final draw was slightly wide. The Canadians had to settle for one point from the end, to tie the game at 2-2.
United States of America skip Peterson was facing two Canadian stones when she came to play her last in the fifth end. This forced her to draw for one point — rather than blank the end — and take a 3-2 lead into the break.
The sixth end produced a break-through. With her last stone, American skip Peterson could only nudge her Canadian target stone, to leave it in play rather than remove it, and this left Canada’s Homan with a nose-hit to score three points and take the lead for the first time in the game, at 5-3.
The Americans responded in the seventh end when Peterson was able to draw her final stone through traffic and onto the button to score two points and tie the game again, at 5-5.
In the eighth end, America’s Peterson was facing three Canadian stones with her last. She only managed to remove one of them, leaving Canada’s Homan with an open draw to score three more points and move to an 8-5 lead.
In the ninth end, United States of America were battling to stay in the game, but Peterson’s run-back attempt with her first stone still left a Canadian stone sitting on the button. Canada put up a guard and then, with the last stone of the end, Peterson played an angle raise take-out. It finally reached the counting Canadian stone, removed it and left two American stones in position to score two points and reduce the Canadian lead to 8-7.
In the tenth end, Canada removed American stone after American stone. Eventually, Peterson’s last stone touched a guard on the way in, giving Canada two points and a 10-7 win, without Homan having to play her last stone.
After the game, Canada’s skip Homan said, “I’m really just proud of my team. I’m really proud of our week and our fight — we were never giving up right to the end. We were there for each other when things were hard and we just pulled closer together and figured out how to make the next one. So I’m just really proud of everything we put out there this week.”
She added, “It doesn’t feel real that I’m bringing home a medal for Canada, it’s a really cool feeling and hopefully you can inspire the next generation in anything — it doesn’t have to be sport — just inspire someone to never give up on their dreams.”
Her teammate Emma Miskew also spoke, “It was a definitely a grind this week, the way that we started was not the way that we wanted to start and we ended up in a position where we had to win the rest of the round robin games to give ourselves a chance at a play-offs spot. I was so proud of the fact that we got there.”
Speaking about the game, she added, “They played really well, we played really well too, but it was just kind of going back and forth and we were fortunate enough to crack a three at an even end, but we still had to keep the pressure because they were coming back strong.”
The bronze medal winning Canadian team are: Rachel Homan (skip), Tracy Fleury (third), Emma Miskew (second), Sarah Wilkes (lead), Rachel Brown (alternate), supported by Renee Sonnenberg (coach) and Viktor Kjell (national coach).
To finish off the women’s tournament and curling at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, Sweden will play Switzerland in the gold medal final starting at 11.05am on Sunday 22 February.
Find the full women’s team curling schedule and all results here.
All times are Central European Time (CET) which is Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) +1.
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