USA mixed doubles curling has spent this Olympic season living on the knife-edge where one stone flips the whole story. Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse from Duluth arrived at Milano Cortina 2026 with real pedigree, but no cushion—this format doesn’t care about resumes, only survival. They played the round robin like a team that trusts its geometry under pressure: patient when the end is begging for a mistake, ruthless when the opening finally appears, and willing to take a blank when the house feels cursed and the crowd wants action. They finished 6–3 to lock in the No. 3 seed, and that’s the sharpest kind of good position here. It’s high enough to matter, close enough to danger, and it puts every decision on a podium track—one clean end and you’re playing for gold—ahem!—and one soft miss and the whole thing ends as a footnote.
And now, after a majestic semifinals win over reigning gold-medal-champions Team Italy, they face team Sweden in the gold medal match today, February 10, at 12:05 PM ET. on Peacock. What a lunch break treat for the entire country to get behind on this Tuesday, amidst this tundra of an overstayed-welcome winter.
I’ll be live-tweeting it on my handle @dansby_edits. I also break down Team USA’s season/2026 Winter Olympics in Milan below, should you want some context about our glorious heroes before their all-world moment today.
Breaking down & contextualizing Team USA Curling’s remarkable 2026 Winter Olympics run
That 6–3 record says more than they advanced. In mixed doubles, the board is smaller, the clock feels faster, and the leverage arrives immediately—eight ends, power plays, and pre-set stones that force decisions before anyone settles in. The best teams aren’t chasing perfection, they’re managing chaos. The U.S. run has been built on absorbing the momentum punch, then answering with one surgical draw or one violent double that erases the mess. And the hinge was always going to be the home favorite—beating Italy in this spot meant proving the Americans could topple the team everyone penciled in for the closing scene.
The semi against Amos Mosaner and Stefania Constantini was the kind of game that plays like a thriller even with the sound off. Italy jumped out 4–2 after three, and the U.S. needed a shot that changed the geometry, not a pep talk. Cory Thiesse delivered it: a pinpoint draw for three in the fourth, perfect weight in a house that was leaning the other way. Then the match turned into a straight exchange of haymakers, with Italy clawing back to an 8–7 lead into the last end. That’s where the Americans went from surviving to dictating. Korey Dropkin cracked the end open with a double takeout that finally gave the U.S. air, and Thiesse finished the job with last-stone nerve for a 9–8 escape. It wasn’t just a win; it locked in the first U.S. Olympic mixed doubles medal, and it put Thiesse in history as the first American woman to medal in Olympic curling.
Now it’s Sweden for gold, and Sweden doesn’t tiptoe into a final—it arrives like a verdict. The siblings Isabella Wranaa and Rasmus Wranaa rolled Great Britain 9–3 in the other semi, then broke the whole script with a power-play avalanche, hanging five in the sixth to end the argument. They’ve got fresh hardware in this discipline—tagged as the 2024 world champions in this Olympic runway—and they’re chasing the one medal Sweden still doesn’t own here: Olympic mixed doubles gold. That’s what makes this final feel heavier than one more game. For the U.S., it’s a chance to turn a historic medal into a program-defining crown, the kind that sticks to names forever. For Sweden, it’s a chance to complete the collection with the cleanest, most clinical version of their sport. The final is today, Tuesday Feb. 10 at 12:05 p.m. ET, streaming on Peacock with TV coverage across NBC, CNBC, and USA Network.
The state of USA Curling, and why a gold would be so glorious
The bigger backdrop is that this moment lands inside a decade where American curling stopped being a punchline and started feeling like a program. The ignition point is still the men’s gold at PyeongChang 2018, the run that taught casual viewers why curling hooks you: long quiet stretches, then one shot that changes the whole room. That final drew real American TV oxygen—1.6 million viewers for the gold-medal win—and the aftershock didn’t fade when the flame went out. Curling didn’t just pop every four years after that; it started building infrastructure, stacking clubs, and turning “learn to curl” nights into a real pipeline.
Put it together and this gold-medal match reads, no matter the outcome, like validated payoff. Thiesse and Dropkin aren’t just playing Sweden; they’re playing for the kind of American curling moment that survives the closing ceremony. A win would turn the first U.S. mixed doubles Olympic medal into the first mixed doubles Olympic gold, and that’s the difference between “historic” and “iconic.” It would also stitch this team directly into the sport’s modern American spine—PyeongChang 2018 lit the fuse, but another gold proves the boom wasn’t a one-off story. For Thiesse, it’s a chance to go from barrier-breaker to standard-setter, the name little kids hear when they walk into their first learn-to-curl night. For Dropkin, it’s legacy math too: the skip who didn’t just survive the swings, but authored the ending when the last stone carried a whole country’s expectation. That’s why today feels heavier than a single final—because if the U.S. closes it, these two become the new faces of what “America belongs here” looks like on Olympic ice.
FAQ for USA Curling Gold medal match (mixed doubles)
Who are the current Team USA mixed doubles players to know?
For this Olympic cycle, the U.S. mixed doubles pair is Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin, who have been central to the U.S. mixed doubles story heading into Milano Cortina 2026 coverage.
How do I watch USA curling today?
For Olympic mixed doubles, NBC’s Olympics coverage lists TV windows across NBC/CNBC/USA Network, and streaming via Peacock at 12:05pm ET, with full listings and replays posted through the NBC Olympics schedule and replay hubs.
Who is Sweden’s duo in the gold-medal matchup?
Sweden is led by siblings Isabella Wranaa and Rasmus Wranaa in mixed doubles.
How does scoring work?
After all stones are delivered in an end, only one team scores, and it scores one point per stone that sits closer to the button than the opponent’s closest stone.
What does “hammer” mean?
The hammer is the advantage of throwing the last stone in an end, usually the most valuable shot because it can decide the score.
What’s mixed doubles, and how is it different from other curling formats?
Mixed doubles is two players per team (one woman, one man), eight ends, and each end starts with two pre-placed stones (one per team), which creates immediate tactics instead of a blank canvas.
What is the “power play” everyone mentions?
Each team can use a power play once per game (excluding extra ends), shifting the pre-placed stones to a side setup to create a more aggressive scoring look.
