MILAN — Curler Korey Dropkin had been hoping to mount an Olympic victory podium since before he started grade school. On Tuesday, he finally made the final steps of that climb alongside mixed doubles partner Cory Thiesse, but the medal he got wasn’t the color he’d dreamed it would be with the Swedish brother-sister combo of Isabella and Rasmus Wrana winning a dramatic final, 6-5, on the final shot at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.
The silver was the first in curling for the U.S. and just the third medal ever. It was also the Americans’ first medal in mixed doubles, which joined the Olympic calendar in 2018.
“It’s bittersweet. But Cory said earlier that, if we were to start this year off and tell each other we were going to be Olympic silver medalists, we’d be ecstatic,” Dropkin said.
“It’s been an amazing week. (There have been) plenty of times when we’ve got emotional because it’s been so much. It just means the world to be here.”
Neither team led by more than a point in the back-and-forth competition, which came down to the final two stones. With the U.S. leading 5-4 in the last end, Thiesse went for a promotion take-out with the Americans’ last stone. She achieved her take-out goal and put her stone into scoring position, but floated it a bit too far, leaving it exposed.