Everything you need to know about the curling mixed doubles event at Beijing 2022

The curling mixed doubles is one of nine mixed events that will feature at the Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022 as the International Olympic Committee continues to work towards increasing gender equality at the Games.

The curling mixed doubles event was first introduced to the Olympic programme in 2018, when Canadians Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris took the gold medal. Competition will be fierce in Beijing, with several teams showing improvement over the past few years.

Starting on 2 February, the mixed doubles will kick off the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022. Learn more about the format, what happened in PyeongChang 2018, what's different about the event, who the teams to watch are and how to follow the action.

Curling mixed doubles competition format in Beijing 2022

The mixed doubles tournament in Beijing 2022 will include 10 teams, who all face each other once during the round robin stage.

The four best ranked teams at the end of the round robin stage qualify for the semi-finals.

The unsuccessful semi-finalists will face-off in the bronze medal game. The winners of those semi's progress to the gold medal game for mixed doubles. Both medal games are on 8 February.

In mixed doubles, two players – one man and one woman – throw five stones per team, with another one already preset at the beginning of an end. One curler throws the first and fifth stones, and the other throws the three stones in between.

This differs from the men’s and women’s curling events, where teams have four players who throw two stones each.

Another difference between mixed doubles and men's and women's curling is that mixed doubles matches last for eight ends instead of 10, unless extra ends are necessary.

The evolution of mixed doubles has caused several skips to pay more attention to the event, as they aim to win more than one Olympic medal during the Games.

“A lot of top players started to play doubles and it drew the attention to this discipline, and this discipline deserves to be treated equal to the four-person game,” Hungarian Zsolt Kiss, mixed doubles world champion in 2013 and 2015, said to worldcurling.org.

'The beer tastes just as good'

The first Olympic mixed doubles champions were Canadians Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris, who defeated Jenny Perret and Martin Rios from Switzerland in the final, 10-3.

When commenting on how the mixed doubles medal compared to his men’s gold medal from Vancouver 2010, Morris said: “The beer tastes just as good.”

Norway – represented by Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten – received the bronze medal after the Olympic Athletes from Russia were disqualified.

Who are the teams to watch at Beijing 2022?

The 10 qualified teams are: People’s Republic of China, Great Britain, Sweden, Czech Republic, Norway, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Australia, and the United States.

The British team of Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat are one of the favourites, even though this will be their first Olympic appearance. They won the 2021 World Championship for Scotland, and Mouat was the runner-up skip at the men’s World Championship as well.

Always a nation to look out for in curling, Sweden will be represented by Almida de Val and Oskar Eriksson, bronze medallists at the 2021 World Championships. The all-time great curling nation of Canada aims to repeat their gold medal, but Morris will play alongside Rachel Homan this time.

PyeongChang 2018 bronze medallists and silver medallists at the last World Championships, Norwegians Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten are also one of the strongest pairs in the field.

How to follow curling mixed doubles at Beijing 2022

The curling mixed doubles will be the first event of the Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022, with the opening games starting on 2 February at the National Aquatics Centre – transformed from the Water Cube in Beijing 2008 into the Ice Cube for Beijing 2022.

The semi-finals are on 7 February, and we will know the new medallists on 8 February, with the final starting at 20:05 local time.

• Correction: This story was amended on 28 January 2022 to clarify that the top four teams in the round-robin stage progress directly to the semi-finals.