Monday, February 18, 2002
Law takes loss in stride
By CHRIS STEVENSON -- SLAM! Sports
OGDEN, Utah -- Canada's women curlers were off to the ice dancing competition
Monday night.
Not that they needed any pointers about moving gracefully around the ice.
Kelley Law's rink topped the round robin portion of the Olympic curling
tournament despite a last-game, 7-6 loss to Switzerland Monday morning. That
left Canada with an 8-1 mark while the Swiss rink skipped by Luzia Ebnoether
moved their record to 6-2 and assured themselves of a place in the semifinals
Wednesday. They will play the American rink of Kari Erickson (6-3), which
hammered Norway 11-2 Monday morning to also earn a place in the semis.
Canada's opponent will be decided Tuesday in a pair of tiebreakers. Sweden's
Elisabet Gustafson and Great Britain's Rhona Martin will play in the morning
with the winner advancing to face Germany's Natalie Nessler. All those teams
finished the round robin at 5-4.
The tiebreakers were forced when Ebnoether, not wanting to be the fourth seed
and face Canada, beat the German rink Monday night 10-4 and Gustafson downed
the Russians 9-6.
Got all that?
None of that mattered at all to Law's rink, one of the few Canadian
performers who came here with high expectations and have managed to meet them
so far.
"It was a good (game) to lose, I don't mind at all," said Law, who fell
behind early and was left scrambling against the Swiss. "We were a little bit
flat, but that's okay. We have the semifinals in our sights and I think
you'll see a different team out there Wednesday."
"It's really hard mentally to go out and play a game you don't have to win
against a team this is potentially one of the top teams here and that to win
to have playoff hopes," said third Jule Skinner.
"They had everything to gain and we had nothing to lose...and there were some
points in the game that we actually played quite well, so we're not to
worried at all."
Law knows the pressure grows with each win. Losing against the Swiss could
serve as a bit of release valve and give Law, Skinner, lead Diane Nelson and
second Georgina Wheatcroft some things upon which to work, a point of focus
heading into Wednesday.
The loss will address any issue of overconfidence, if there was one.
"I"m quite happy with what went on," said Law. "We can go back and think
about it. It's hard to win 11 games in a row. No, this is not too bad."
The curlers have been working on building through the round robin and
indications are they have done that. There was a danger of getting too
excited too early at the prospect of defending the gold medal won by Sandra
Schmirler in Nagano four years ago.
As huge favourites, the pressure on Canada's men and women curlers would be
crushing if they allowed it to be. We've seen all too well what the pressure
of the Olympic moment can do to athletes of whom much is expected.
Law and her crew played it very low key Monday and the plan appears clear:
peak at the right time.
While things are on track and the Canadians are comfortable in the place they
have built for themselves, everything changes come Wednesday.
One off day and it all comes crashing down.
"I doesn't matter who we play in the semis," said Law. "Whoever we play,
we'll be playing the rocks."
2002 Games Curling Coverage
