Rachel Homan will finally take home an Olympic medal.
Canada scored three in the eighth end to break the game apart and secure its 10-7 bronze-medal victory over the United States' Team Tabitha Peterson at Milano Cortina 2026.
The Ottawa-based rink made up of skip Homan, third Tracy Fleury, second Emma Miskew, and lead Sarah Wilkes have officially become Olympic medalists.
“Unbelievable, just so proud of the team and you know how hard we fought," Homan told CBC Olympics after the win. "Struggles early but it didn’t matter, we stuck together, and I couldn’t be more proud of our fight and to get a bronze medal and bring that home for Canada, there’s just no better feeling."
In the last two years, Homan has earned a 198-31 record, two undefeated Scotties titles, back-to-back world championships, six grand slam events, and now an Olympic medal.
“I am so grateful that our dads connected us when we were so young," Miskew told CBC Olympics as she reached over to embrace Homan with tears in her eyes. "We’ve been through it all, we’ve been through another Olympics where we didn’t get the medal and so this one feels so sweet.
“We said in the changeroom after we started, 'we’re going to keep playing until they tell us to leave,' and then we got to come home with a medal, and we are pretty proud of that."
Team Homan escaped the eighth end with the lead after Peterson’s triple takeout attempt fell short and only moved one. Homan made a perfect draw with her last shot to lock in a three-point edge and give the Canadians an 8-5 lead.
The U.S. battled back in the ninth end to score a deuce and close the gap to one, but Canada, up 7-6, had the hammer for the 10th.
In the first half of the game, neither rink dared to take costly risks in such a close medal contest leading to just a single point being scored by the team holding hammer each end. Team Peterson had a one point lead at the fifth-end break, but from there it was all Canada.
In the sixth end Canada scored three to take the first significant lead. But in seventh, Peterson shot a well-managed draw through a tight port to score two and tie it up.
Canada outcurled the U.S. 89-79 per cent and scored eight of its 10 points in the final five ends. The Americans only had four points through the second half.
“We put this team together four years ago with the goal to go to the Olympics, bring home a medal for Canada, and I’m just so proud of how we stuck together and were really resilient,” said Fleury after the final game of her first Olympics.
After struggling to deliver consistent draws throughout the tournament, Fleury finally found her draw weight in this last all-important medal game.
This was Homan’s third Olympic Games and her first medal. In both 2018 and 2022 she missed the playoff round in the women’s and mixed disciplines, respectively. Going into Milano Cortina 2026 she was ranked No. 1 in the world, a position she’s held for 83 weeks since the start of the 2023-24 season.
After starting 1-3, Team Homan ran the table and won five straight to reach the playoffs. One of those initial preliminary losses came 9-8 at the hands of the Americans.
This is Canada’s first women’s curling medal since Jennifer Jones won gold at Sochi 2014.
