Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin faced some adversity before even arriving at their gold medal match in the 2026 Winter Olympics mixed doubles competition.
The United States duo overcame that, and then they had to take on Sweden, too.
The problem? Their bus was in traffic. They were running late.
And so they got off and walked.
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That’s what they revealed on the USA Network broadcast of the competition on Tuesday afternoon. It started at 12:05 p.m. ET, which was 6:05 p.m. local time in Italy.
The U.S. duo has already guaranteed the first-ever medal for the United States in the mixed doubles competition. They beat the hosts Italy on Monday to advance to the gold medal match, where they worst they can do is silver.
They want it all, though, and as they said on the broadcast, of course they’d walk as far as needed for a chance to win a gold medal.
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This duo was originally college classmates at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
They joined together as a curling partnership in 2022. Thiesse had previously competed in mixed doubles with John Shuster, but they didn’t qualify for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
On Tuesday, they have reached the culmination of the sport.
A little bit of traffic on a bus wasn’t going to slow them down.
They’ll be hoping that walk was for a gold medal.
