The most dominant team in curling over the past three seasons – possibly ever – has one more goal to cross off its list: capturing the gold medal for Canada at Milano Cortina 2026.
Since the start of the 2023-24 season, Rachel Homan, Tracy Fleury, Emma Miskew and Sarah Wilkes have simply been on a completely different level compared to everyone else in the granite game.
They won back-to-back Scotties Tournament of Hearts in 2024 and 2025 (missed this year’s Scotties) with a perfect 22-0 record as well as the past two titles at the World Women’s Curling Championship.
They also captured seven Grand Slam titles over that stretch, compiling a total record of 191-27.
Team Homan, ranked first in the world, will be the undisputed favourite in Cortina. But capturing gold for Canada for the time since 2014 when Jennifer Jones accomplished the feat in Sochi, Russia, will be no walk in the part.
Homan and Miskew both know the difficulties the Winter Olympics present.
The life-long friends represented Canada at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea, alongside Lisa Weagle and Joanne Courtney. It was a difficult week for the defending Canada and world champions, missing the playoffs with a 4-5 record.
Homan wore the Maple Leaf again in Beijing four years ago, this time in the mixed doubles discipline with John Morris. The duo missed the playoffs after a heartbreaking loss to Italy in the round-robin finale.
But those results are well in the past now, and it’s safe to say the 36-year-old Homan has reached a new level as she gets set to enter her third career Olympics.
The Ottawa foursome swept Halifax’s Team Christina Black in the final of the Canadian Curling Trials in November, earning the right to fight for the gold in Italy.
Rachel Brown remains with the team as their alternate. Heather Nedohin and Viktor Kjell will serve as coaches.
Team Homan’s 2025-26 season has been excellent once again, but slightly less dominant than the past two seasons. In addition to their Trials win, they’ve won three Grand Slams and the PointsBet Invitational.
They own a 49-12 record this season, three losses shy of reaching their combined total from the previous two seasons. Team Homan lost the quarter-final at the Canadian Open to Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa and the semifinal of the Players’ Championship to Team Kerri Einarson in their last two events before the Olympics.
Overall, Team Homan is 15-4 this season against teams they’ll square off against in Italy.
Let’s take a closer look at Team Homan’s path to gold in Cortina.
Denmark (Team Madeleine Dupont)
World Ranking: No. 11
Feb. 12 at 3:05 a.m.
It all begins against the Danes and veteran skip Madeleine Dupont.
The 38-year-old from Copenhagen is no stranger to international curling as this will be her fourth appearance at the Olympics in addition to an incredible 16 appearances at the World Women’s Curling Championships.
The two skips have a little history with each other at the Olympics, too.
Dupont won just a single game at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea, which happened to be against Homan, 9-8 in 11 ends, dropping Canada’s record to 0-3 at the time.
The loss was probably the most trying part of a frustrating week for Team Homan in Pyeongchang as Homan was criticized for removing a Danish stone in the fifth end that had been burnt.
“I wouldn’t have done it, but we’re different that way,” Dupont said after the game. “I’m not going to be mad about it. She can choose to do whatever she wants.”
Team Homan took a 6-4 lead after scoring four in the end but gave a steal of one in the extra end to stay winless.
Despite the critical comments, Homan was well in her rights to remove the stone as per the rules of curling.
“There are options, and we’ve burned rocks in the past and they’ve come off,” she said. “Burning a rock is not something that you can do. So obviously, we’ve done it in the past and they just happened to do that then. So, it’s just the rules, I guess.”
Homan and company would bounce back after the loss to Denmark, winning their next three games before ultimately coming up short of the playoffs.
Dupont’s best finish at the Olympics came in her first showing in 2010 when she threw last stones for the Danish rink that just missed the playoffs with a 4-5 record. She finished 2-7 in Beijing in 2022.
At the women’s worlds, Dupont has a silver medal from 2007 and a bronze medal in 2009. They went 5-7 last year in South Korea and missed the playoffs.
Dupont’s biggest win of her career came in 2022 when she won the European Curling Championship.
Homan has a 3-2 record all-time against Dupont, but was routed, 8-1, in their lone matchup this season, back at the Shorty Jenkins Classic in September.
Team Dupont is having an excellent 2025-26 season, sporting a 62-22 record with four bonspiel wins.
Dupont’s sister, Denise, plays lead on the team.
Team Canada will be the clear favourites in the opener. Still, Dupont and Denmark are fully capable of making it a close contest.
United States (Team Tabitha Peterson)
World Ranking: No. 13
Feb. 13 at 8:05 a.m.
Up next is Tabitha Peterson and the Americans.
This will the third straight Olympics the 36-year-old will represent the United States, looking to improve on back-to-back 4-5 performances.
The Americans were the last rink to secure their spot at the Olympics, doing so via the last-chance qualifier in December.
Homan has dominated Peterson during their head-to-head history, winning 13 of 14 matches, including seven straight and three times this season.
Peterson’ vice Corey Thiesse will play in the mixed doubles competition with Korey Dropkin the week prior.
A five-time national champion, Peterson has made eight trips to the World Women’s Curling Championship, finishing third at the 2021 women’s worlds inside the Calgary curling bubble.
Team Peterson is 39-21 on the season, making the quarter-final of the Players’ Championship in their most recent event in January.
They finished second last with a 3-9 record at last year’s World Women’s Curling Championship.
Winnipeg’s Cathy Overton-Clapham, a five-time Scotties Tournament of Hearts champion, has coached Team Peterson for the past few seasons.
Great Britain (Team Sophie Jackson)
World Ranking: No. 21
Feb. 14 at 3:05 a.m.
Sophie Jackson will skip the Brits in Cortina but throw lead stones.
The 29-year-old native of Scotland will be an Olympic rookie in Italy, as will fourth Rebecca Morrison, 29, and second Sophie Sinclair, 28.
Third Jennifer Dodds, 34, helped Eve Muirhead win the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2022 and will also team up with Bruce Mouat in mixed doubles for the second time before four-person curling gets underway.
British Curling is still in a transitional phase on the women’s side following Muirhead’s retirement in 2022 and Dave Murdoch’s departure to Canada as their new high-performance director.
Homan is 1-1 against Jackson all-time, with both of their matchups coming at last year’s World Women’s Curling Championship in Uijeongbu, South Korea. Jackson upset Homan, 8-7, in early round-robin action before Homan’s team eliminated the Scots in the quarter-final by a score of 10-4.
Team Jackson (29-21 in 2025-26) has three second-place finishes this season, including the European Curling Championship where they lost to Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg in the gold-medal game. They are 2-6 at two top-tier Grand Slam events this season, missing the playoffs both times.
Team Jackson also dropped the final of the Master Tier 2 in September.
Team Jackson made the playoffs at last year’s women’s worlds (7-5 record) against many of the same teams set to compete in Cortina and could be in the mix for the final four once again if they play to their potential.
Switzerland (Team Silvana Tirinzoni)
World Ranking: No. 2
Feb. 14 at 1:05 p.m.
The match of the round robin goes the afternoon of Valentine’s Day.
Despite it being heavily one-sided, Rachel Homan vs. Silvana Tirinzoni remains the best rivalry in women’s curling today.
The two world-class skips have squared off in the past two World Women’s Curling Championships finals and three Grand Slam finals this season with the Canadian taking all five of those pivotal matchups.
Homan is 32-10 all-time against the 46-year-old Tirinzoni, including taking 16 of 19 clashes this quadrennial.
Before Homan formed her current juggernaut foursome, Tirinzoni, alongside last-rock thrower Alina Patz, led the most dominant team in women’s curling, highlighted by winning four straight world titles from 2019 to 2023.
Despite her past success at the World Women’s Curling Championship, Tirinzoni hasn’t had the same luck in two appearances at the Winter Olympics. She finished with a 4-5 record in 2018 and then missed the podium in Beijing after an impressive 8-1 round robin. The Swiss dropped the semifinal to Japan’s Team Satsuki Fujisawa and the bronze-medal game to Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg.
Team Tirinzoni is having a terrific 2025-26 season. They own 65-9 record, winning six events, including the last two Grand Slams entering the Olympics. Tirinzoni has played in all five Slam finals this season.
With 23-year-old Swiss skip Xenia Schwaller, ranked fifth in the world, continuing to get better every season, there’s a very good chance this will be Tirinzoni’s final Olympics.
Rest assured the Zurich native will be determined to leave Italy with her first Olympic medal. The Swiss will be Canada’s biggest challenge in Cortina, and this matchup could very well be a preview of the gold-medal game.
China (Team Rui Wang)
World Ranking: No. 18
Feb. 16 at 3:05 a.m.
Team Canada will get an off-day on Feb. 15 before returning for a two-game day on Feb. 16.
Leading things off will be a clash against the Chinese, skipped by 30-year-old Rui Wang in her third Olympic appearance.
Wang played mixed doubles in 2018, missing the playoffs after dropping a tiebreaker to Norway, before going 4-5 on home soil in 2022 as a third for Yu Han.
Now the Harbin native enters Milano Cortina 2026, looking to get China back on the podium for the first time since Bingyu Wang earned bronze at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
Wang finished third at the World Women’s Curling Championship last season, her first appearance in the tournament since 2019.
Wang has played Homan tough in the past.
Homan defeated Wang, 7-5, at last year’s women’s worlds, but the Chinese skip defeated the Canadian twice at October’s Pan-Continental Curling Championship, including 7-6 in the final.
Homan is 5-2 all-time against Wang but has only one win by more than two points.
Team Wang is 33-24 overall in 2025-26, winning once.
Despite not being a major factor on the Grand Slam circuit, Wang’s bronze-medal performance at the women’s worlds last year shows the Chinese have the potential to make a run at the Olympics.
Japan (Team Sayaka Yoshimura)
World Ranking: No. 9
Feb. 16 at 1:05 p.m.
Team Sayaka Yoshimura qualified Japan for the Olympics thanks to their strong performance at the last-chance qualification event in Kelowna.
Satsuki Fujisawa, who led Japan to a silver medal at the 2022 Olympics, was beaten twice by Yoshimura at the country’s Olympic Trials back in September. Team Yoshimura then defeated Team Miyu Ueno, two games to one, in a best-of-three final.
Homan has beaten the 34-year-old Yoshimura in 10 of their 11 all-time matches, including all three this season.
Homan hammered Yoshimura 11-2 at last year’s worlds as the Japanese finished with an 4-8 record.
Team Yoshimura sports a lukewarm 37-29 record on the season, including a 9-16 record over five Grand Slams.
Japan will likely be in tough to make a podium return in Italy.
Sweden (Team Anna Hasselborg)
World Ranking: No. 9
Feb. 17 at 8:05 a.m.
Another career-long rival, Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg will be Homan’s seventh opponent at Milano Cortina 2026.
Hasselborg defeated Homan 7-6 in the round robin during the 2018 Olympic tournament on her way to winning the gold medal.
The 36-year-old Hasselborg, alongside longtime teammates Sara McManus, Agnes Knochenhauer and Sofia Scharback, won bronze at the 2022 Olympics, beating Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni.
Team Hasselborg has also represented Sweden at every World Women’s Curling Championship since 2017, earning silver medals in 2018 and 2019. They went 9-3 at last year’s women’s worlds before losing to China’s Team Rui Wang in the quarter-final.
The foursome won their third European Curling Championship in November, representing their only win of the season (29-14 total record).
Homan is 21-12 all-time against Hasselborg, winning all three matchups in 2025-26.
Hasselborg and company aren’t in the same form as their run in Pyeongchang eight years ago but still can compete for a playoff spot as one of the more experienced teams in the field.
Italy (Team Stefania Constantini)
World Ranking: No. 28
Feb. 18 at 1:05 p.m.
Stefania Constantini, 26, will lead the host Italians in Cortina.
It’s been a rough lead up to Milano Cortina 2026 for Team Constantini. After starting the year ranked 16th in the world, Constantini’s crew enter the Olympics sitting 32nd after posting a record just three games over .500 (31-28) with no event wins this season.
The curling program was also accused of favouritism recently when long-time front-end player Angela Romei was left off the five-player squad in favour of 19-year-old Rebecca Mariani. Mariani is the daughter of Marco Mariani, Italian curling’s technical director.
“If it had been a tactical decision, they could have tried it out much earlier and then weighed things up, explaining the reasons to those directly involved,” Romei told an Italian newspaper.
Romei added she was told about the decision over the phone rather than in person.
“I have always believed in human relationships and fair play, both on and off the field of play, and what happened to me is the antithesis of all that,” she said.
Mariani is listed as the alternate on the team, alongside third Elena Mathis, second Marta Lo Deserto and lead Giulia Zardini Lacedelli.
Romei has played in six World Women’s Curling Championships, most recently in 2025 when Team Constantini finished 4-8. She was also on the 2024 team that finished just off the podium in fourth place.
Mariani skipped Italy at the 2025 World Junior Curling Championship, finishing last with a 2-7 record.
Homan is 1-1 against Constantini this season and 5-4 all-time.
With a less-than-stellar season and the controversy leading into the Olympics, not to mention the pressures of being the host nation, the young Italians seem to have a lot on their plates heading into Milano Cortina 2026.
A podium finish might be out of reach for Team Constantini as result. Team Homan can’t take them lightly, of course, as they’ve given the Canadians some trouble in the past.
South Korea (Team Eunji Gim)
World Ranking: No. 3
Feb. 19 at 8:05 a.m.
Team Homan will close round robin play against South Korea’s Team Eunji Gim.
Ranked third in the world, Team Gim will be gold-medal contenders in Cortina if they’re on their game.
At the past two World Women’s Curling Championships, Team Homan lost to Team Gim in the round robin before eliminating the rink out of the Uijeongbu Curling Club in the playoffs.
Team Gim beat Italy’s Team Stefania Constantini to claim bronze at the 2024 women’s worlds and lost the third-place game to China’s Team Rui Wang at last year’s event.
Homan is 12-3 all-time against the 36-year-old Gim.
Team Gim is 50-24 in 2025-26, winning their national championship way back in June and a small bonspiel in October. They’ve made the playoffs in 10 of their 11 events and are coming off a semifinal loss to Switzerland’s Team Silvana Tirinzoni at January’s Players’ Championship.
Gim played lead for South Korea at the Sochi Olympics in 2014, finishing out of contention with a 3-6 record.
Homan and Gim usually give fans a good game. There’s no reason to expect their Olympic clash will be any different with both sides being strong contenders for the final four.
