MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's a big week for U.S. curling at the Olympics. Cory Thiesse became the first U.S. woman ever to medal in curling, with a silver in the mixed doubles event. And the team events start this week, so there's a lot more curling to come. NPR Olympics correspondent Pien Huang is with us now from Milan. Hi, Pien.
PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Hey, Michel.
MARTIN: So curling - you know, with brushes, the big rock - it gets its day in the sun every four years. No pun intended.
HUANG: Absolutely. Yeah. So this is a sport that is pretty small in the U.S. until something big happens at the Olympics. And yesterday's silver medal, which went to Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin, the U.S. mixed doubles curling team, will give the sport a boost. Thiesse...
MARTIN: OK. So you think.
HUANG: ...Is now the...
MARTIN: OK. So we think. That's...
HUANG: (Laughter).
MARTIN: ...Debatable, but do go on.
HUANG: Yeah. Yeah. So Thiesse, as you mentioned, is now the first U.S. woman to get a medal in curling. And she says the game was super close, but it was bittersweet to miss the gold medal by one point. But she'll take it.
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CORY THIESSE: If you would have told us that we would be walking away from the Olympics with a silver medal, we'd be really proud of ourselves and really proud of all the work that we put in over the last four years to get to this point.
HUANG: This is the first time that the U.S. has medaled in mixed doubles. It was added to the Olympics as a medal event back in 2018 at the Games in PyeongChang.
MARTIN: OK. But by a point, right? That seems hard-won.
HUANG: Yeah. It was a neck-and-neck game, Michel, over two hours. So Thiesse and Dropkin played against the brother-and-sister team from Sweden, Rasmus and Isabella Wrana. And over eight ends, which are like innings, they kept trading the lead off by a single point. It wasn't a perfect game. I mean, both teams had misses towards the end. But Korey Dropkin from the U.S. swept his heart out, and Isabella Wrana from the Swedish team did not miss. It came down to the very last stone in the last end, and the Swedish team obviously eked it out. But this was the final match in a whole week of hard-fought matches. These teams have been playing daily, sometimes twice a day, since before the opening ceremony. And for Cory Thiesse, who's also on the women's curling team - she's taking a day to sleep in, get a massage, and then tomorrow morning, she's back on the ice for the start of the women's team events in a match against Korea.
MARTIN: OK. So we said there's more to come. What should we be watching for?
HUANG: Michel, there is so much more. If you're ever wondering who's competing on any given day, it's curling and also ice hockey because both have events every single day of the Games. So on curling, the U.S. men's team starts today with a match against Czechia. They're called Team Casper after their skip, Danny Casper. And this is a team that's currently ranked sixth in the world in a tight pack at the top, so they could medal at these Games.
MARTIN: And this is a new U.S. team, you were telling us, right?
HUANG: Yeah. So for the first time in 20 years, there is an all-new men's team representing the U.S. here. I was at their U.S. curling trials back in the fall, and it was a huge upset when Team Casper beat a team led by John Shuster. So John Shuster is Mr. Curling in the U.S. He's been in the past five Winter Olympics, was aiming for a sixth. And back in 2018, his team won the first and only American gold medal in curling. But at the curling trials, this middle-aged Midwest dad was beat by Team Casper, whose main members are all Gen Z.
But Team Casper also has the U.S.' oldest athlete at these Games. It's 54-year-old Rich Ruohonen. He's a fifth man, kind of a coach and alternate. And he's been so close to Olympic so many times over the years and just kept getting beat by John Shuster. So if he throws a rock in competition, which he plans to, he says it's going to be the greatest moment in his life - even better than his wedding day. And he will go into history as the oldest U.S. Winter Olympian to ever compete.
MARTIN: I think we might want to ask the missus about that, but OK. I wouldn't want to hear that.
HUANG: (Laughter).
MARTIN: That's NPR's Pien Huang in Milan. Pien, thank you.
HUANG: You're welcome.
MARTIN: And whether you're into curling, skates, snowboards or sleds, Up First Winter Games has got you covered. It's a new video podcast from NPR. Find it every afternoon at youtube.com/npr.
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