From curling dream quartet to stunner in 12 months

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CC Aarau’s curlers around Skip Silvana Tirinzoni (43) have celebrated countless successes. But now it’s time for a bang. From one moment to the next, the quartet (for now) becomes a trio. Briar Schwaller-Hürlimann (29) is kicked out of the team. It all started so beautifully. What happened there?

In March 2022, the quartet Tirinzoni, Alina Pätz (33), Melanie Barbezat (31) and Esther Neuenschwander (39) will celebrate their third world title in a row. No women’s team has ever done that before.

A month later, on April 25, the team announces that the athletes are parting ways. Barbezat and Neuenschwander have decided to turn their backs on curling.

«Melanie and Esther say goodbye to top sport after this season. Melanie would like to focus on her own physio practice in the future and spend more time with her family. After 18 years of top sport, Esther has had enough of top sport. She is curious about what life has in store and is looking forward to going on holiday in the winter,” the team writes on Instagram.

Pätz and Tirinzoni want to continue after the half of their team. And find what you’re looking for just a few weeks later. On May 12, 2022, they announce that Schwaller-Hürlimann and Howald are joining. The latter was already there as a substitute in previous years and will now strengthen the team.

The newly formed team is ambitious and has the Olympic Games of 2026 as its long-term goal. “A lot can happen until then, but the plan of our partnership is to win a medal at the Winter Games,” Pätz told the “Aargauer Zeitung”.

The quartet spends a lot of time on the ice during the summer, practicing individual elements such as the perfect in-turn (turning the stone clockwise) for hours, weeks and days.

The team achieves a first common goal and qualifies for the European Championships in Oestersund (Sd). There it will reach the final in November 2022, but will lose to Denmark 4:8. Nevertheless, the first joint medal is a fact.

The curlers have been showing all winter that the new constellation is working. They participate in eleven tournaments, reach the finals eight times and triumph six times. With these results, they are now number one in the world rankings. That comes as a surprise to Tirinzoni and Co. Because the primary goal for the season is to grow together as a team. “It worked from the start,” Tirinzoni told the “Luzerner Zeitung”. “It’s like an old relationship – a breath of fresh air is always good.”

“We saw this as an opportunity,” adds Pätz, but also emphasizes that the process of finding a team has not yet been completed.

On March 26, 2023, the team in Sandviken (Sd) will write history again. With a 6-3 victory over Norway, they are crowned world champions for the fourth time in a row. They have now won 36 World Cup games in a row – no team has ever done that before, both in the women’s and men’s.

The special thing: in order not to disturb the team structure and harmony, the team will play without a substitute. You don’t want to bring in someone new that you have to get to know first. With a program of eleven games in nine days, this is a risk you consciously take. Because before that you always played the World Cup with a substitute.

The team of the 2022 Olympic Games in Beijing (China) will experience how important such a situation can be in the worst case. In the penultimate group match, Tirinzoni has to be treated to the calves. If she had failed and no replacement was available, the team would not have been able to continue playing.

The world title in a quartet is not enough for Schwaller-Hürlimann. With her husband Yannick she travels to Gangneung (Skor) for the Mixed Doubles World Championships. This will take place from 22 to 29 April. However, the curling couple missed the passage to the quarterfinals.

Six weeks after the world title there was a big scandal. The team blows out Schwaller-Hürlimann. From the World Mixed Doubles Championships in South Korea, she travels to Regina, Canada, where the last tournament of the season is scheduled – and there she is stunned.

At a team meeting on May 2, she is told that Tirinzoni, Pätz and Howald are saying goodbye to her. “That came as a big surprise to me,” says Schwaller-Hürlimann to Blick. What happened? “It was said that it was due to the team harmony. But we never had a discussion about that’, describes the Zugerin, still audibly agitated three days after his throw-out.

Telling her ex-teammate about this decision is what Tirinzoni describes as “one of the hardest things in my career”. She explains to Blick: “We notice that she thinks differently than we do in many areas. In the longer term, that could have become a problem with our goal of the Olympics.”

The timing of the bang comes as a surprise. Especially when you consider that a few weeks ago you were jubilant about the prevailing harmony and did not bring a replacement to the World Cup so as not to disrupt the structure.

Furthermore, Tirinzoni contradicts the ex-teammate’s statement that there were no signs that despite the World Cup victory there was resin anywhere. “Our coach and a teammate had long conversations during the season.”

Only those involved know who is right and what exactly happened. (bir)

Source : Blick