Team Kleibrink

Kleibrink heading to Torino Olympics

Last Updated: Sat Dec 10 18:25:58 EST 2005
CBC Sports

Calgary’s Shannon Kleibrink finally realized her Olympic dream Saturday. (CP/Andrew Vaughan)

Stoughton gunning for Gushue in men’s curling finals

Torino 2006

Eight years after a heartbreaking defeat at the Canadian curling trials, Calgary’s Shannon Kleibrink finally achieved her Olympic dream.

Kleibrink needed a tricky takeout on her final shot to beat Kelly Scott 8-7 to win the women’s final at the Canadian Olympic Curling trials in Halifax on Saturday.

Scott of Kelowna, B.C., scored two in the seventh to erase a 5-3 deficit. She then took a 7-5 lead by stealing two in the eighth and ninth ends.

However, Kleibrink, needing to remove Scott’s rock that was touching her stone, calmly made the shot to score three for the win.

The victory gives Kleibrink a measure of redemption.

In 1997, she lost the championship match 9-6 to Sandra Schmirler’s dominant Saskatchewan rink. The late Schmirler went on to win Olympic gold at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games.

”It’s been a long eight years,” an elated Kleibrink told CBC Sports prior to donning on a Canadian team jacket. ”We just got a little bit fortunate in that last end. This is a powerhouse young team (Scott’s rink) and I expect them to be back.”

Kleibrink, who secured second place in the round-robin standings, defeated Stefanie Lawton of Saskatoon 5-4 in tightly-contested, 10-end women’s semifinal on Friday.

Her road to the Olympics wasn’t easy as her rink struggled early in the week.

“I’m so proud of them (her team),” said Kleibrink. “We got off to a bit of a rough start at 1-3. We just stuck together and believed to the very end and great things happened.

Scott seemed to have the match well in hand but a series of mistakes in the eighth and ninth ends started a downward spiral that her rink couldn’t come back from.

“It did go pretty wrong pretty quick didn’t it,” said a tearful Scott.

“The 10th had trouble written all over it for us once they got a couple of guards established so we were chasing probably from third stone.”

Scott, who finished first in the round robin, said the desire to go the Olympics was worth the anguish of losing to Kleibrink.

“It’s hard,” she said. “There is no second place but I wouldn’t give it up for anything. To not try would have been a shame because you’d miss out on so much more.”

Though Kleibrink didn’t let the disappointment of the 1997 trials become a distraction during the week, she admitted her loss to Schmirler was used as motivation by her team.

“It was kind of nice to have that in our back pocket that we were so close because we knew we could do it then,” said Kleibrink.

“That’s a big thing in an event like this, kind of believing you can win, right to the very end.”

Third Amy Nixon said no skip deserves to be representing Canada more than Kleibrink.

“She is just probably one of the best shotmakers in women’s curling who has never quite broken through at a national like a Scott or a trials,” said Nixon.

“How many people in their lives get a chance to say, I’m an Olympian. Wow. That’s phenomenal.”

Winnipeg’s Jeff Stoughton and Brad Gushue of St. John’s, N.L., will meet in the men’s final Sunday.

with files from Canadian Press