Rachel Homan matched Canadian curling legend Sandra Schmirler with both a repeat world title and a third overall and will look to end Canada’s Olympic medal drought next year.
Homan, 35, skipped Canada to a 7-3 victory over Switzerland in the World Women’s Curling Championship final in South Korea on Sunday.
Homan, along with Sarah Wilkes, Emma Miskew and Tracy Fleury, won the final over a Swiss team skipped by Silvana Tirinzoni for a second consecutive year.
Schmirler was the last Canadian woman to skip repeat world champion teams in 1993 and 1994 and the last to win three world titles as a skip.
Either Canada or Switzerland has won the last 11 world titles — with Tirinzoni skipping the Swiss to four in a row from 2019-23.
But Canada, the most successful nation in world championship history, was shut out of the Olympic women’s team medals in 2018 (Homan’s team was sixth) and 2022 (Jennifer Jones’ team was fifth).
Before that, Canada won a medal in each of the first five Olympic women’s curling tournaments, starting with Schmirler’s title at the 1998 Nagano Games.
Homan, whose team went into worlds ranked No. 1 in the world, can put Canada back on the Olympic podium. But first the Ottawa native must make the team via Canada’s Olympic Trials next November.
Earlier at worlds, the U.S. team skipped by Tabitha Peterson went 3-9 in round-robin to finish 12th out of 13 teams.
The Americans missed their first chance to qualify a quota spot for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games via world championship results.
The last-chance Olympic qualifying tournament is in December in Canada, where the final two spots in the 10-team Olympic field will be filled. Before that are the U.S. Olympic Trials in November.
