Coming back from disappointing third places at PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022, Canada sparkled again on Italian ice. They were the only team to go undefeated in the round robin, also defeating China 9-4.

That was the only loss suffered by China on their route to the Milano Cortina 2026 final, and the defending champions were eager to make amends, putting up a fierce fight for gold.

“Everyone’s performance today has been quite good. We have been very determined and calm,” China’s Li Nana told Olympics.com. “Although the result is a bit regrettable, we have tried our best.”

While Canada took an early lead over China in the round robin, neither team could gain a solid advantage in the gold medal clash. 

The first end was scoreless and, while Canada managed to win the second by one stone, the lead was short-lived.

The teams continued to swap points, with China never getting the lead but also never going down by more than one. In the seventh end, China tied the score again to make it 3-3 heading into the last, where Canada had the hammer.

A couple of blocking shots started off the eighth end, with Canada’s five-time Paralympian Forest finally getting a stone closest to the button. 

Zhang Mingliang rallied by getting the ninth stone even closer and took advantage of Jon Thurston‘s missed throw to set up a third stone for the Chinese within the outermost ring.

Thurston used the next stone to clear a path for Ideson, who then inched past Zhang’s mark to take Canada back into a winning position. Wang Haitao responded with an attempted raise, but missed the mark.

This left Canada with a dilemma. Coming back for the last shot, the Canadians were undecided whether to throw their last stone away or try to inch their existing stone closer to the centre. 

“That was crazy,” Ideson said. “The clock was running down. Jon wasn’t confident that we were shot, and I get that. He didn’t want to lose the game on a measure, and when you’re over the rocks, you can’t really tell which one’s closer and looking at the screen, you don’t really want to trust that. So Jon was confident that we could move it a little bit and still be shot, and time was running down.”