Rachel Homan’s Ottawa rink earned Canada’s first women’s world curling championship since 2008 with an 8-3 win over Russia in Beijing on Sunday.
Homan, the 27-year-old skip, third Emma Miskew, second Joanne Courtney and lead Lisa Weagle defeated Russia’s Anna Sidorova in eight ends, breaking open a 3-1 lead after five ends with three in the sixth and two in the eighth. Sidorova had a hog-line violation on her final rock of the eighth, opening the door for Canada’s deuce. Russia conceded after that.
This was the third appearance for Homan at the world championship. The rink earned bronze in Latvia in 2013 and silver in 2014 in Saint John. They also finished second at the women’s world junior event in 2010.
“My team worked so hard for this. We’ve been at worlds now four times and to bring back gold for Canada and stop our drought, we’re pretty excited,” Homan said in a televised interview.
Canada had not won the women’s world title since Jennifer Jones won in Vernon, B.C., in 2008. Canadian representatives had finished second three times in that span.
Homan’s rink, which won all 13 games in Beijing, also became the first women’s world champion to complete the event undefeated since the event began in 1979.
That record of dominance was the least important aspect of the world championship for Homan.
“To us, really, we just wanted to bring back gold for Canada, no matter how we had to do it.”
Scotland’s Eve Muirhead, coached by Canadian curling legend Glenn Howard, won the bronze medal match 6-4 over Sweden.