Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin are the first curlers to clinch spots on the 2026 U.S. Olympic team.
Thiesse, 30, and Dropkin, 29, won the Olympic Trials in mixed doubles in February, but still had to earn an Olympic quota spot for the U.S. through international competition.
They did just that in their first of two chances — at this week’s world championship in New Brunswick, Canada.
Thiesse and Dropkin, the 2023 World champions, finished fifth at these worlds. That combined with another U.S. team’s 10th-place result from the 2024 Worlds were enough to ensure the U.S. gets a spot in the 10-team 2026 Olympic field.
“A huge relief,” Thiesse told the Grand Slam of Curling. “This has been the goal, the dream for both of us for so long, and we both worked so hard for it.”
Had Thiesse and Dropkin not qualified the spot at these worlds, they would have had one more opportunity at a last-chance qualifier in December.
They’re the third and fourth athletes to clinch a spot on the U.S. Olympic team after snowboarders Chloe Kim and Red Gerard. The U.S. team for the Milan Cortina Games will likely end up including more than 200 athletes across all sports.
Thiesse and Dropkin, whose team formed over drinks in their native Duluth, Minnesota, would each make their Olympic competition debut in 2026.
Thiesse went to the 2018 PyeongChang Games as an alternate for the women’s team but did not see game action. She was also a runner-up at the 2018 Olympic Trials (mixed doubles) and the 2022 Olympic Trials (women’s team).
Dropkin was on Olympic Trials runner-up men’s teams in 2018 and 2022, each time winning the first game of a best-of-three championship series against John Shuster-skipped teams before losing the next two.
Mixed doubles debuted at the Olympics in 2018. U.S. teams finished sixth in 2018 (Rebecca Hamilton/Matt Hamilton) and eighth in 2022 (Vicky Persinger, Chris Plys).
Olympic Trials for the women’s and men’s team events will be in November in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The winners will then go to December’s last-chance qualifier, where the last two spots will be filled in the 10-team women’s and men’s Olympic fields.
Italy’s Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner won the world mixed doubles title Saturday in their first global championship appearance together since winning the 2022 Olympic title.
They went 11-0 at both the 2022 Olympics and 2025 Worlds. Constantini, who played with different partners at worlds in 2022, 2023 and 2024, is from Cortina d’Ampezzo, which will host curling at the Milan Cortina Games.
