After Benching John Shuster, USA Curling Team Finally Notches First Win

The American curling team started the Vancouver Winter Olympics in miserable fashion, having lost their their first four matches. John Shuster’s uncharacteristically dull shooting was a major reason for the poor start, and before Friday’s match against France, the team made the decision to bench Shuster.

As it turns out, the roster move led to positive results. USA finally won its first curling match of the 2010 Games, beating France by a 4-3 score. Down 1-3 in the ninth, the Americans rallied. It’s quite an encouraging turn of events for the team, which wasn’t able to capitalize on big shots throughout the first four matches.

John Shuster has had a rough couple of days in Vancouver. The US Men’s Curling team had lost three matches in two days going into Thursday’s tilt with Denmark, including two in extra ends. Shuster, the American skip (captain), had chances to win two of those matches on the hammer (the final throw), but missed both, meaning the US badly needed a win against the Danes to keep their hopes alive to make the medal round.

The US led most of the match and had a one point lead heading into the 10th and final end (after Shuster missed a shot in the 9th that would have given the Americans a four point lead), but Danish skip Johnny Frederiksen made an excellent shot on the hammer to force extra ends. Shuster had a shot at redemption on the hammer in the 11th end. The Danes had the stone closest to the button with a US stone directly behind. Shuster needed to hit the Danish stone to one side or the other, but instead hit the Danish stone spot on, knocking it into the US stone already sitting behind it. This left the Danish stone even closer to the button than it had been, gave the Danes the victory and left the Americans at 0-4 and in last place in Round Robin play.