Rachel Homan looking for a medal in third trip to Olympic Winter Games
Will the third time be a charm, maybe even golden, for Rachel Homan?
The skip of Team Canada’s women’s foursome at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games has guided the most dominant squad in women’s curling for the last three years. Her resumé includes five Canadian women’s titles and three world titles.
Missing, however, is an Olympic medal, despite two previous trips to the Games. Her women’s team finished a disappointing sixth at PyeongChang 2018 and she and John Morris ended up fifth in the mixed doubles at Beijing 2022.
“Obviously that’s the goal, putting the maple leaf on your back and trying to bring home a medal for Canada,” the 36-year-old told a recent media availability session. “And you know I haven’t been able to do that yet, and I’m super excited to get the chance to go back.
“With this team, I know we’ve done everything we possibly can to be the best prepared team in every way to, you know, give us the best chance at being on that podium at the end of the week.”
Second Emma Miskew has been a Homan friend and teammate since the two were 11-year-olds and her resumé matches that of the skip. While the team has their collective heads focused on preparation and not looking ahead, Miskew says it “would obviously be a dream come true” to share an Olympic medal with Homan, lead Sarah Wilkes and third Tracy Fleury.
“All we can control is that we’re as ready as we can be and that we’re working well together,” Miskew said. “I mean obviously we would love to bring back the gold for Canada, but at this point all we’re thinking about is what do we have to do next to best guarantee that we’re going to perform at the level we know we can.”
Part of ensuring that happens has been Homan and Miskew, as Olympic veterans, offering Fleury and Wilkes, who will be playing in their first Games, whatever help they can to prepare them for the chaos that comes with the Olympics.
“It’s a little bit of a different beast [than the world championships] when you get to the Olympics,” Miskew said. “So we share as much as we could about our past experiences and how to be prepared for anything that could come about. And we feel a lot more prepared than I think we did going into PyeongChang because we didn’t have some of that information, so hopefully it’s valuable.”
The team had training sessions before leaving for Italy and coach Heather Nedohin said there will be further training once they get to their pre-Games staging site in Brunico.
“We’ve got a great opportunity to have some ice prepared there,” she said, “Adjust to the time zones, get our feet under us, get adjusted and then, the beauty of it is that the mixed doubles are ahead of us. We’ll be able to watch those games.
“So, it’s really about staging ourselves and putting ourselves, mentally, physically, emotionally, in that time zone … preparing ourselves for what we do best.”
As part of the support team, Curling Canada analytics lead Renee Sonnenberg will be there bringing her experience and expertise.
“Our role is to eliminate doubt, provide clarity for the team,” she said of her role. “Help them debrief what’s happening out there, making sure that if we have to pivot, we do so quickly, scouting opponents, making sure [Team Canada] have the best rocks in their hands.
“Really, just taking care of all the details behind the scene so that they don’t have any question marks and when they get out there, they’re ready to be their awesome selves.”
Team Canada opens their tournament Feb. 12 against Denmark, shipped by Madeleine Dupont, one of the many veteran skips in the event. The women’s 10-team round robin goes to Feb. 19 with the top four teams then advancing to the semifinals on Feb. 20.
