TURIN -- For better or for worse, in sickness or in health, Canada heads into the medal round in curling today, entering the great unknown.
The better and worse part has been on and off throughout the Olympic curling round-robin as both rinks finished with 6-3 records and play in the second-versus-third-place games.
The sickness and health part was the question yesterday as both teams took down days after qualifying for the medal rounds despite both having to make lineup changes because of illness.
Mike Adam, the second who gave up his starting spot to Russ Howard, played the final round-robin game for Canada replacing Jamie Korab, down with the flu, at lead. And Amy Nixon was removed from the women's lineup, with Sandra Jenkins getting in to play second and Glenys Bakker moving up to third.
At least lead Christine Keshen didn't pick that game to sleep in, having showed up for the second end in a previous game.
With Nixon suffering from what they figure was food poisoning, the Canadian women have been both sick and tired at these Olympics.
"It's all settled down now," said Darryl Nixon, her father and team coach who - other than a rights-holder CBC interview - shut the team down from doing any media yesterday.
"The team medical staff can't put their finger on exactly what it is, but we think it was a form of food poisoning."
BOARD GAMES
The team didn't take any chances yesterday. The curlers went to a grocery store, bought some food, and cooked their own supper in their apartment. They spent the evening together playing board games.
While they essentially tried to do next to nothing with their day, they did succeed in winning their coin toss for hammer in the semifinal.
It didn't go so well with Gushue's crew.
"Russ Howard messed it up. He called heads and it was tails," the last-rock thrower said of the ringer he brought here to skip.
In Olympic curling the first-place team gets the hammer, but the second- and third-place teams have to flip a coin.
"We think it's wrong," Gushue said. "In every other event, including the trials, we'd have had the hammer in the game for finishing second."
Gushue's Newfoundland rink goes into a rematch against Pete Fenson of the U.S.A., the team he knocked off 6-3 in the final round-robin game to make it into the medal round. Both teams ended with 6-3 records as did David Murdoch of Great Britain, who will play 7-2 Markku Uusipaavalniemi of Finland in the other semifinal.
FAILED TO QUALIFY
M-15 as the Finland skip is known for the number of letters in his last name, led all skips in shooting percentage at 81 with Gushue, Ralph Stoeckli of Switzerland and defending Olympic champion Pal Trulsen tied at 77%. Trulsen and Stoeckli both failed to qualify, going 5-4 in the round robin.
Great Britain topped the team totals at 81% with the U.S.A. second at 80% and Canada third at 79%."
"We're feeling pretty good about our last two and a half games," said Gushue, who was here for last night's Canada-Czech Republic hockey game with the entire team including Korab, who woke up feeling fine.
"Right now our confidence is as high as it has been all Olympics," said Gushue.
Kleibrink's Canadian women's team out of Calgary meets Mirjam Ott of Switzerland, who came in at 7-2, tied for first with defending world champion Anette Norberg of Sweden.
Norberg is the No. 1 seed and is in a matchup against Dordy Nordby of Norway for the medal round semifinal as a result of beating Ott in the round robin.
The Swiss scored a 6-5 win over the Canadians in the round robin. The Swiss and Canadians are as close statistically as they were on the scoreboard and in the standings.
Switzerland curled 76% in the round robin and Canada 75%. Kleibrink was second to Noberg in skip percentages with 76%, Ott ending up at 75%.
Canada has only managed to win one gold medal since curling was made an official full-medal sport at the Olympic Winter Games at Nagano '98.
Sandra Schmirler's Regina rink won gold with Kelley Law of Vancouver settling for bronze four years ago in Salt Lake.
Mike Harris of Toronto and Kevin Martin of Edmonton provided Canada with two silvers in the men's event.
