Curling duo glides into history

Dropkin, Thiesse lose to Sweden in final but silver is first mixed doubles medal for U.S.

- By KEVIN BAXTER

KOREY DROPKIN pushes a stone in a dramatic mixed doubles final that was won on the final shot Tuesday.

(BERNAT ARMANGUE Associated Press)

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.

‘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.