Canada sitting pretty and primed to finish in first and earn a bye.
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Wow they are curling great… but, there are a few teams just as good to contend with in the medals rounds.
The buy is important for the mental rest and the physical rest
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Jacobs is truly a MONSTER. . . .
Dominant team in a solid to excellent field.
Not quite as dominant as Rachel Homan is in world womens.
btw - Homan might contend for a playoff berth if she was inserted into the world curling championship lineup for Austria or somesuch. Can’t deal with monsters like Jacobs, Edin, Mouat, etc. but she’d be game!
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Interesting interview with the much maligned Briane Harris. Some good stuff with regards to the process that went down, how her team treated her, and it was clear that she was simply dumped. I feel bad for her, but then I struggle with the idea that her husband took a supplement he bought off the internet…
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I had concluded that she was dumped which appeared to be fairly obvious.
I am not as skeptical as you about her explanation for testing positive.
It has also now been accepted by the governing body. There are so many banned substances that trigger a positive test, many of them available over the counter. There are many athletes who have tested positive for banned substances after unwittingly ingesting them in a common product such as a cold remedy, although not nearly the amount that claim this has happened. It is easy to be sloppy in what you ingest when you take a drug that contains a banned substance. Briane didn’t do that even so I have sympathy for her. We know that many diseases can be contracted through an exchange of bodily fluids so why not a transfer of a banned substance?
It doesn’t seem far fetched to me, but like most of these cases we can never definitely know the truth. Nevertheless on a balance of probabilities I do believe her.
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Sorry I should have explained better… I’m not skeptical of her explanation. I think what happened is as she is describing. I don’t think she took the drug.
What I think is crazy is that the husband of a potential Olympic athlete is ordering supplements off the internet and both of them just thought that was ok. These athletes have alot of resources including an app that they can type any substance into to make sure they are staying away from anything they shouldn’t be taking. The fact that as a couple it would appear they were very careless is what surprises me.
The part we aren’t sure about is exactly why the team so easily dumped her, my opinion (which is worth absolutely nothing) is that the team feels similar to me - while she’s not “at fault” shes ultimately responsible and let her team down.
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This is one of those situation where there’s no heroes. Harris’s husband (don’t know where he came from) was the source of the testing woes - came out in the report. Briane obviously oblivious to hubby’s iron-man powder addiction.
Kinda stupid. On both of them.
The sports authority that hung Harris on the vine for too long a time is also complicit in this sad, idiotic story.
I hope Briane gets her sea legs back and helps Kate Cameron to a Manitoba title. Thats about as far as she’ll go with someone like Cameron - but at least she’s going to a Top 4 Manitoba team, prolly a Top 12 Canadian team.
Don’t think she’ll ever look at her husband the same way - - - - if she hasn’t ditched him by now!
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I pretty much agree. Nobody comes of this looking good. But it’s hard to blame WADA for this, if you test positive twice for a PED it’s not innocent until proven guilty. It’s guilty, twice. It’s up to her to prove her innocence and she did. How long it takes is irrelevant imo. No different than any other trial appeal.
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I no longer root for scottish independance.
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I think we finally determined Senator Brad Jacobs kryptonite - SCOTTISH HAGGIS. You could feel the panic building up, expressed on the faces of Benjamin Hebert & Marc Kennedy.
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As good as Canada was, that Scottish is just a centimeter or two better… and that’s all it takes at this level
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very confusing rules in the Live: Homan, Mouat face off in Rio Mare Battle of the Sexes - The Grand Slam of Curling
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It’s just a skins game
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I guess Homan is beatable after all.
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I’d have to go look it up, but I’m pretty sure Homan won 2 slams, and lost the final of the other 3. She lost to Einarson, Hasselborg and Tirinzoni and im 99% sure those were all slam finals. Just a remarkable season.
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The Olympic Trials fields are all but set:
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Men’s Olympic Trials - has to favour ChessMaster Goo (Gushue). . . but any of these 7 teams could win - other than Kleiter, who’s too new to hope for anything other than a Top 3 standing.
In women’s - there’s Homan and there’s the rest of the field, unless Rachel is injured or way out of sorts, she’ll stomp her way to another Olympic appearance.
Homan = 85 to 90% fave to take the Olympic spot.
A notch down is mercurial Kerri Einarson, maybe 7 to 9% chance. Team Einarson and Team Homan pretty much even from lead to 3rd - but Homan is a monster and Einarson a nail-biting up + down former champion that isn’t usually within 10 percentage points of Homan in their personal confrontations.
Rest of field - maybe 2 or 3% chance, and I’m being exceptionally charitable.
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In perhaps the most pro curling oriented post of the thread there will be an actual pro curling league starting next year.
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