When Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner defeated Norway 8-5 in the Mixed Doubles Gold Medal final on Tuesday night, they made Olympic history as the first Italian curling winners.
What You Want to Know?
Italian Mixed Doubles Curling Team 2022
The Italian pair capped off a perfect week with this performance, as they went undefeated in all 11 of their scheduled games.
Norway, though, jumped out to an early lead after taking two points from Constantini in the first end when her nudge attempt went wide.
There was a tie after the second end, when Italy scored two points. Good Italian build-up play in the third end left Norway’s Kristin Skaslien facing four Italian counters when it was her turn to play her last stone.
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Skaslien played a raise, knocking three Italian stones out of play while leaving one in scoring position.
The score was now 3-2, and Italy had taken the lead with a steal of one.
Ultimately, the game was decided in the fourth end.
Skaslien Came to Play Against Three Italian Counters and Tried to Raise her Own Stone Again.
In the end, however, it managed to sneak past the Italians’ three-stone cluster for a steal and a 6-2 advantage going into the fourth.
In the second half, Norway made a comeback, and in the fifth end, with Italy lying four, Skaslien kept her cool to pull inside all of them and score one point, cutting Italy’s lead to 6-3.
In the sixth end, Italy’s lead shrank to 7-3 after Constantini’s final draw was longer than she had hoped. Italy had been hoping to score two points in this end.
Norway didn’t Give Up and Scored Twice in the Seventh End to Cut Italy’s Lead to 7-5.
When it came to the eighth end, though, Constantini had a clean take-out opportunity to win the game, and she executed it with confidence, removing both counting Norway stones while keeping her own in place to earn an extra point. With this, her squad clinched a record 8-5 victory.
A delighted Stefania Constantini gushed after the game: “It’s the dream of every athlete, it’s really great, it was my dream, our dream, and it’s really good because we worked hard to attain this goal — and now the goal medal is ours!”
On a broader scale, she said, “I hope maybe others [in Italy] will be fascinated in this new sport and try it and start to play. That’s a fantastic idea!
Her sparring partner Amos Mosaner also shared his thoughts: “It’s incredible that we won the gold medal without dropping a single set. I don’t buy it right now, but perhaps in a few days I will. I still can’t believe I won a gold medal, especially because I didn’t expect to.
Kristin Skaslien of Norway said, “We got a silver medal in the Olympics and that’s pretty great,” after the game. As a result, we are overjoyed with our situation.
Despite a dreadful Monday, we were able to salvage the rest of the week. We think we could have played better and given the Italians more of a fight in the gold medal game and are therefore a little bit disappointed in our loss. But they performed exceptionally well today.
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Last Words
Stefania Constantini, a female player, and Amos Mosaner, a male player (both of whom competed in the Youth Olympics) won gold for Italy, with coach Violetta Caldart rounding up the Italian contingent.
Norway’s silver medalists are Kristin Skaslien (women’s player), Magnus Nedregotten (men’s player), and Thomas Loevold (coach).
