BROOMFIELD — The first four Americans to qualify for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics have to wait almost a year for the Games, but that’s nothing compared to the wait that ended for them Saturday at the Broomfield Event Center.
At the Olympic Trials four years ago, Debbie McCormick and Allison Pottinger were on a team that lost the deciding game in an extra “end,” or overtime. Natalie Nicholson and Nicole Joraanstad were on the team that finished third.
But competing as Team McCormick they dominated this women’s Olympic Trials — losing only one game in the 11 they played — and emerged victorious in Saturday’s finals with an 8-5 decision over Team Patti Lank.
“We’ve been thinking about this since we all walked off the ice in the 2005 trials, wanting to get back here and have a different outcome,” said Joraanstad, 28, who lives in Madison, Wis. “It kind of makes me want to tear up now. All of us love each other, and we’re all good friends. We just wanted to do it for each other. Winning with these girls is the biggest high.”
McCormick, an Olympian in 1998 and 2002, is thrilled her teammates will get to experience the Games for the first time. First they will represent the U.S. in the world championships later this month in Gangneung, South Korea.
“There are no words to describe how excited I am to go to the Olympics with these girls, and our coach, my dad,” said McCormick, who lives near Madison. “It’s going to be amazing. I can’t wait, and we have Korea to build upon. We’ve got all summer, all fall; we’re going to work really, really hard. This isn’t it. We’re going to enjoy this win, but we’re not done by any means.”
Since coming together after the 2005 trials, Team McCormick has won every U.S. championships. McCormick dealt with the heartbreak of the 2005 trials by trying to focus on the future.
“I don’t really think back; honestly, I don’t,” said McCormick, who threw the winning stone Saturday to score two points in the final end of the game. “It was a very tough loss at the time, took me a long time to get over it, but I’m not one that really looks back. I’m proud of my accomplishments and everything I’ve done, but I always look forward.”
In Saturday’s second game, Team Shuster avenged its loss to Team George in Friday’s first-round men’s playoff and qualified for the Olympics with a 10-9 win.
“Really, really excited,” said skip John Shuster of Duluth, Minn., a member of the 2006 Olympic bronze-medal team. “Being at the Olympics already once, I know exactly what we’re in for, and I’m just unbelievably excited for my teammates. They carried me through the first half of this week, and they held on just long enough for me to come around so we could win this thing.”
Broomfield set an Olympic Trials attendance record with 14,941 spectators over eight days of competition.
“It’s really exceeded our expectations,” said Kei Ann Brownell, president of the Metro Denver Sports Commission, which organized the event. “It’s not necessarily the curling-committed, it’s just interested sports fans who have learned about the sport, been captivated by it, and the crowd is going wild.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616, jmeyer@denverpost.com
