What a week for Australia’s curling Winter Olympians, Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt, who won the country’s first ever World Championship Curling medal, improving on their previous best result of fourth in 2019.
A stunning result for a country that doesn’t even have a dedicated curling facility.
The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympians won a record 8 out of nine events in the Group B round robin including victories over the Czech Republic, Estonia, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye, USA and a single loss against Japan.
They then advanced directly to the semi-final, where they were matched against Scotland. In a close match with Australia trailing by just one point heading into the final end, Scotland scored the final two points to take the win with a score of nine to six, sending Australia to the bronze medal match against Estonia.
In the bronze medal game, Gill and Hewitt dominated to emerge victorious with a score of nine to two, claiming Australia’s first ever major Championship medal in Curling.
Ten teams qualify to compete in Curling at the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milano-Cortina, with the eight highest ranked countries from points earned at the 2024 and 2025 World Championships.
Australia just fell agonisingly short by one place, ranked ninth after the two World Championship events. The pair will be aiming to qualify for one of the final two places in the Milano-Cortina field at the last chance Olympic Qualification Event in December 2025 in Kelowna, Canada.
“Since 2018 we have built and built year in year out, got to the 2022 Olympics and that was a fantastic feeling, and then this year we have had close to 11 podiums, it’s impressive and I am proud of what we have done”, said the 30-year-old Hewitt from Melbourne.
“We have come up a little bit short for direct Olympic Qualification which is bittersweet, but still getting the bronze can’t be too disappointed with that.”
“It’s huge for us, we have worked really hard for this moment, and like Dean said it’s a bittersweet feeling, but definitely gives us a lot of confidence moving forward and the momentum isn’t going to stop here,” said the 25-year-old Gill from Brisbane.
Gill and Hewitt will be full of confidence following the World Championship medal and an incredible season which included 11 podiums in international tournaments which catapulted their world ranking to number three in the world.
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