FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 11, 2005

 

Local curlers headed to Olympic Trials for Curling

 

(STEVENS POINT, Wis.) – Several Minneapolis/St. Paul area curlers will compete at the 2006 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Curling slated Feb. 19-26 in Madison, Wis.

 

Ken Olson (Plymouth, Minn.), Rich Ruohonen (Brooklyn Park, Minn.), John Benton (St. Michael, Minn.), Doug Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.), Katie Beck (St. Paul), Theresa Faltesek (St. Paul), and Allison Pottinger (Eden Prairie, Minn.) will each try to mark their footsteps in curling history as the Olympic Trials begin on Saturday.

 

Olson, 48, plays lead on the Greg Eigner rink based out of Fort Wayne, Ind. The Eigner rink finished 3-0 at the Challenge Round in January in Eveleth, Minn., to qualify for the Trials. The team goes into the Trials ranked No. 10, as determined by peer-seeding. Olson is employed with Liesch Associates Inc., a Minneapolis-based environmental consulting firm. He began curling in 1971 and was a member of a group that set the World Curling Marathon record of 45 hours, 50 minutes at the St. Paul Curling Club in March 1975.

 

Ruohonen, 33, has competed at the men’s national championship three times and qualified for the Trials after finishing 5-1 at the Challenge Round. Ruohonen, a personal injury attorney with Pritzker, Ruohonen and Associates, began curling in the fifth grade. He was named the youngest super lawyer by the Minnesota Law & Politics in 2000. Teammate John Benton, 35, is an operating systems analyst with Fairview Health Services of Minnesota. Benton competed at the Olympic Trials in 1992 and 1998 and at three national championships. The Ruohonen rink has played well this season, advancing to the semifinals of several events on the World Curling Tour. The team goes into the Olympic Trials as the No. 6 ranked rink.

 

Doug and Allison Pottinger are one of two husband-wife duos in the Olympic Trials field. Doug skipped a team at the 2002 Olympic Trials and returns for another shot at making the Olympic team as vice skip on Jason Larway’s Seattle-based team. The Larway rink won the B event at the Men’s Qualifying Round in St. Paul in January to qualify for the Olympic Trials. Prior to that, the team won the 2004 Continental Cup as part of Team North America, finished second at the Seattle Cashspiel, and reached the quarterfinals of the Best Western Wayside Inn Classic on the World Curling Tour.

 

Doug’s wife, Allison, plays vice skip on the 2003 world champion Debbie McCormick rink based out of Rio, Wis. Allison is one of the most decorated U.S. athletes. She is a five-time national champion, two-time mixed national champion, and won the 1994 junior national title. These curlers’ gold-medal winning performance at the 2003 Worlds placed them in curling’s history book as the first American women’s team to win world gold. Pottinger finished second at the 2002 U.S. Olympic Trials as a member of the Patti Lank rink. A native of Ontario, Pottinger learned to curl in the sixth-grade at Otterburn Park in Quebec. The McCormick rink enters the Olympic Trials as the No. 2 ranked team.

 

Beck, 22, recently joined the Caitlin Maroldo rink of Rochester, N.Y., as the team’s fifth player but will probably see significant playing time as the week unfolds. Beck won gold at the 2002 Junior Worlds, silver at the 2003 Junior Worlds and reached the semifinals at the last three women’s national championships. She is a student at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities.

 

Faltesek, 27, recently was added to the Norma O’Leary rink after one of the team’s members was unable to travel with the team to the Olympic Trials. She is a member of the St. Paul Curling Club.

 

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