// WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Flashback: 1998 Olympic Games
Te 1998 U.S. Olympic Women's Curling Team (l-r): Lisa Schoeneberg, Erika Brown, Debbie (Henry) McCormick, Lori Mountford, Lisa (Liapis) Fuchsgru- ber, and Steve Brown, head coach.
“Are we really ready? Do we really belong? Have we prepared enough? I wonder if the other athletes feel the same way? All I know is that I am every inch a competitor. I can’t wait for it to start.”
– Sandra Schmirler, Team Canada skip, gold medalist, 1998 Olympics, writing her thoughts in her personal journal on the eve of the Olympics.
By Guy Scholz, U.S. Curling News features writer
represent your country at an Olympic Games? Tis was the most depth-ridden field of any sport at those 1998 Olympic Winter Games, male or female. Good- ness - this may have been the most depth of quality for any sport in the history of the Olympics. And who would have known the foundation the 1998 Olympic curling events
were building, other than curlers and the odd hockey player from Minnesota or the Canadian prairies? Curling was in the process of becoming one of the most popular television sports for Olympic fans. As the front page of the New York Times put it at the last Olympics, “Watching curling is like drinking a fine glass of merlot.” Tis is what Team USA, with skip Lisa Schoeneberg, third Erika Brown, sec-
ike so many things in life, the further one gets away from a historic event the more significant it becomes. Imagine telling your grandchil- dren that you were a part of the first-ever sanctioned curling team to
ond Debbie (Henry) McCormick, lead Lori Montford, and fiſth Stacey (Liapis) Fuchsgruber, was privileged to be a part of. Most of the curling pundits prior to these Nagano Games felt that Team USA would be in the thick of things. Tis was a very good curling team that had faced the other seven qualifiers at previ- ous world championships or major bonspiels. Te intimidation factor would be minimal because they knew they could compete with any team on the planet. And when all the granite was thrown and swept, Team USA, in a week of strug- gle, eked out a fiſth-place finish, battling in every round robin game but missing the medal round by one place. Looking back at 1998, every curler at the Olympics felt the same way as the
late Sandra Schmirler – terrified and excited. Tis would be the largest television audience in history to showcase their sport, and the teams were all star-studded. Te field of teams included four world champions from Canada, Norway, Ger- many and Sweden. Te next three qualifiers from Denmark, Scotland (Great Britain) and the U.S. were medalists at world championships in both juniors and women’s events. Japan, being the host, was the only country without a world championship medal, yet they played very well in major bonspiels in prepara-