FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 16, 2005
Portage’s Brunt headed to Olympic Trials
for Curling
(STEVENS POINT, Wis.) – Portage’s Maureen Brunt dreams of becoming an Olympian. For Brunt, 22, that dream is now well within reach as her team prepares for the 2006 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Curling.
Brunt, a member of the Cassie Johnson rink based out of
The team recently returned from Karuizawa, Japan, where they represented the U.S. at the Karuizawa International Bonspiel. The team took home silver medals for their performance at the event. The Johnson rink started out the season by making the semifinals at the Korbel International Cashspiel as the only all-women’s team in the field in October at the Madison Curling Club. The team also advanced to the semifinals of the Labatt’s Women’s Cashspiel in Duluth in December prior to qualifying for the Olympic Trials.
Brunt and her teammates will be among nine other women’s teams and 10 men’s teams vying to become the Olympic Curling Team for the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino, Italy. The Johnson rink goes into the Olympic Trials as the No. 3 ranked team as determined by peer-seeding.
Brunt, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, won the 2002 Junior World Curling Championships to become part of the first American women’s team to win a world title at any level. The team followed up that performance with a silver medal at the 2003 Junior Worlds. She started curling at age 6 at the Portage 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