Team Canada capped an unbeaten run through the Youth Winter Olympics mixed curling competition with a 10-4 win over the U.S. in the gold-medal game in Lillehammer, Norway, on Wednesday (Feb. 17).The Canadian team, skipped by Mary Fay of Chester, N.S., and rounded out by third Tyler Tardi of Surrey, second Karlee Burgess of Brookfield, N.S., lead Sterling Middleton of Fort St. John, B.C., and coach Helen Radford of Halifax, scored five in the first end and never looked back.
“Representing Canada at the Youth Olympics, it's an unbelievable feeling. I don't know what to say about it, it's just an incredible feeling,” Tardi (pictured), who lives in Cloverdale, told Curling Canada.This Youth Olympics gold medal marks the end of a long year of training for the Canadian team, which began this journey a year ago. The 2016 Youth Olympics team was determined based on applications from all age-eligible players in Canada, with a special focus on participants in the 2015 Canada Winter Games last February in Prince George, B.C., where Fay and Burgess won silver, representing Nova Scotia, and Tardi and Middleton won bronze as Team B.C.“These are the three best teammates that we could have had,” said Middleton about the Youth Olympics experience.
“We worked together, we picked each other up, all on the same level, and we got it done this week.”At the first Winter Youth Olympics, in 2012 at Innsbruck, Austria, the Canadian team of Thomas Scoffin, Corryn Brown, Derek Oryniak and Emily Grey captured a bronze medal, behind gold-medallist Switzerland and silver-medallist Italy.With the team competition concluded, the players will now be split into mixed doubles teams, with players from different countries matched into new combinations, determined by the athletes’ position within their teams and their nations’ overall position following the traditional team competition. The mixed doubles gold- and bronze-medal games will take place on Sunday at 4 a.m. PST.Live scoring, pictures, team lineups and the event schedule are available at www.worldcurling.org/yog2016.Click here for curling video highlights from Lillehammer.