FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2005
Duluth contingent
headed to Olympic Trials for Curling
(STEVENS POINT,
Wis.) – Eight curlers from the Duluth area will compete
at the 2006 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Curling with hopes of becoming the first
members of the 2006 U.S. Olympic Team.
Curlers Aileen Sormunen, Courtney
George, Amanda Jensen, Amanda McLean, Jessica Schultz, Patti Luke and Amy
Wright of Duluth as well as Norma O’Leary from nearby Silver Bay, Minn., will
compete at the 2006 Olympic Team Trials Feb. 19-26 at the Madison Curling Club
in McFarland, Wis.
Duluth
teammates Sormunen, George, Jensen and McLean
recently returned from the 2005 Junior Nationals and have plenty of ice-time
this year in preparation for the week-long Trials. The youngest team in the
field, the Sormunen rink earned the last berth to the
Trials after finishing with a 3-2 record at the Challenge Round last month in Eveleth, Minn. The team enters the
Trials as the No. 6 ranked team, as determined by peer-seeding.
Amy Wright, 41, has competed at the last two Olympic Trials,
finishing second at the 1998 event. A three-time national champion, Wright and
her teammates upset the defending national champion Patti Lank rink to finish
4-0 at the Women’s Qualifying Round in Rice
Lake, Wis., in
January and earn a spot to the Olympic Trials. The team goes into the Trials as
the No. 4 ranked team.
Jessica Schultz, a native of Anchorage,
Alaska, who attends the University of
Minnesota-Duluth, plays second on the Cassie Johnson rink of Bemidji, Minn.
The Johnson team recently returned from Karuizawa, Japan,
where they earned silver medals at an international bonspiel. The Johnson rink
is ranked No. 3 and qualified for the Olympic Trials after finishing 4-0 at the
Women’s Qualifying Round in Medford,
Wis., last month.
Schultz, 20, joined the Johnson rink this season after
playing with Wright last season at the women’s level and skipping her own team
at the junior level for Alaska.
She was named All-Star skip at last year’s Junior Nationals.
O’Leary, 43, and Luke, 38, will team up in their first
appearance at the Olympic Trials. O’Leary, golf course superintendent and club
manager of the Silver Bay Country Club, and Luke, an accountant with the
Department of Justice, also will compete at the 2005 U.S. National
Championships, which begin in Chicago the day after the Olympic Trials
conclude. The O’Leary rink is the No. 7 ranked team.
The 2006 U.S. Olympic Team Trials also will serve as the
World Trials to choose the USA’s
entrants at the 2005 Ford World Curling Championships. Ten men’s and 10 women’s
team will take part in a round robin. The top four teams will advance to the
semifinals on Feb. 25. The Page Playoff System will be used to determine the
finalists. The No. 1 ranked team will play the No. 2 ranked team. The winner
advances to the final while the loser advances to play the winner of the No. 3
vs. No. 4 ranked teams to determine the second finalist. The men’s and women’s
finals will take place Feb. 26.
Highlights from the 2006 U.S. Olympic Trials will be aired
on the College Sports Television Network at a date to be announced soon.
Curling became a full-medal sport at the 1998 Olympic Winter
Games in Nagano, Japan. The 2006 Olympic Games will
take place Feb. 10-26, 2006. The 2010 Olympics will be held in Vancouver, British
Columbia.
USA Curling is sponsored by AIT Worldwide Logistics and AmerAust Technologies as well as by General Motors,
Chevron-Texaco and Bank of America through a joint marketing program with the
U.S. Olympic Committee.
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For more information: Rick Patzke, USA Curling, rickp@curlingrocks.net, 715-344-1199