After defending her Masters title at the Grand Slam of Curling on Nov. 3, the Ottawa Curling Club’s Rachel Homan is back in the city and preparing for next month’s Olympic trials.
The team, which includes skip Rachel Homan, Alison Kreviazuk, Emma Miskew and lead Lisa Weagle will compete to represent Canada at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
The 2013 Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings Canadian Curling Olympic Trials sees the eight women’s teams that qualified at the 2013 Capital One Road to the Roar pre-trials compete in a single round-robin. The top three teams make the playoffs, and the first-place team wins the right to represent Canada at the Olympics.
Homan says the team is practising every day, with both on- and off-ice training.
“The team is all the talk amongst members that’s for sure,” says Joe Pavia of the Ottawa Curling Club. “But it is bigger than that. It actually has spread to the entire curling community in this area who follow the team’s every move.”
This is the first time Homan will be competing at the Roar of the Rings, but she has been curling competitively since she was very young.
Homan won at the Ontario Bantam Girl’s Curling Championship for competitors under the age of 16 four consecutive years and continued to win titles each year afterwards.
In 2009, she qualified for the Olympic Pre-Trials in Prince George, B.C., and finished with a 3-3 record. She was the only junior team to ever play in this event.
This year, Team Homan was the 2013 Scotties Tournament of Hearts Champions and won the bronze medal at the 2013 World Women’s Curling Championships.
According to Al Cameron, of the Canadian Curling Association, Canada has the most depth of women’s curling talent in the world.
“In terms of what we’ve got for talent, I hate to use the word veterans, but that’s basically what it is,” says Cameron. “And then we’ve got some incredibly young talent like Rachel Homan’s team. They’re all in their early to mid-twenties.”
Reaching the Olympics is every athlete’s dream and, according to Homan, it takes practice and patience.
“There’s no rushing it and the losses along the way will only help you learn and grown more as an athlete,” says Homan.
The 2013 Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings will be held Dec. 1-8 in Winnipeg.