Team Shuster will defend gold medal at 2022 Beijing Olympics
John Shuster and three other Minnesotans and Wisconinites will represent Team USA at the 2022 winter Olympics in Beijing. Team Shuster qualified late Sunday night with a 5-4 win over Team Korey Dropkin at the Olympic trials in Omaha, Nebraska.
Shuster, of Superior, Wisconsin, will represent Team USA for the fifth consecutive winter Olympics. He'll be joined in Beijing in February by Matt Hamilton of McFarland, Wisconsin, and Duluth residents John Landsteiner and Chris Plys.
"The more you play with people and the closer you become ... we're such good friends, almost brothers," said Shuster.
Team Shuster won gold at the 2018 winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. They became the first Americans to win gold in men's curling and did so in dramatic fashion.
In 2018, the U.S. lost four of its first six matches and then won three straight do-or-die matches to qualify for the playoffs, where they defeated world powers Canada, Switzerland and Great Britain to advance to the semifinals. They again defeated Canada and then won the gold with a 10-7 win over Sweden.
Gone from the 2018 gold medal team is Joe Polo, who is part of Team Dropkin, and Tyler George, who retired and is now a curling ambassador in the U.S.
