Japan women's curling: Top things you need to know about Team Fujisawa

Everything changed for the Japan women's curling team in 2018 when Great Britain's Eve Muirhead missed a tricky shot for bronze in PyeongChang.

The Japanese, whose club team is Loco Solare, already had a devoted following, but winning a first Olympic medal took things to an entirely new level.

Led by skip Fujisawa Satsuki, the core four team members that make up Team Fujisawa are back at Beijing 2022 and are currently in third place with a 5-3 record and on the verge of another semi-final qualification. However, already-qualified Switzerland stand in their way, a team that denied them a World Championship title in 2016.

Ahead of that crucial match, we break down the top things you need to know about Japan's Team Fujisawa.

You can find the round robin standings here and the 16 possible permutations here.

Team Fujisawa nearly missed out on Beijing 2022 altogether

In September 2021, during the play-offs against their fiercest Japanese rivals Fortius, Team Fujisawa needed three wins in a row to keep their Olympic dream alive.

And that's just what they did. "I was scared, very scared. But now I feel as if the spider’s thread has come down," Yoshida Chinami said, comparing the final moments of the fifth match and third consecutive victory to a famous Japanese novel, The Spider's Web, written in 1918 by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, which is used as a metaphor to say that heaven offers help in times of adversity.

'Sodane': Buzzword of the year in 2018

To sum up just how popular the team was, and the attention they garnered back home in Japan during the 2018 Winter Olympics, a phrase they used throughout the competition in PyeongChang was chosen by Japanese publisher Jiyukokuminsha as one of the best words to sum up the year.

All of the team members hail from Hokkaido and were heard using the phrase 'sodane', which translates to "that's right" or "I agree", frequently. The selection of buzzword of the year was also affirmation and acknowledgment of the team's excellent communication on the ice.

Skip Fujisawa Satsuki: curling runs in the family

Fujisawa grew up watching her parents play the sport and by the time she was five years old she had already joined the Tokoro Curling Club. She and her sister Shiori won back-to-back Pacific-Asia Junior Championships in 2008 and 2009.

Yoshida sisters: Third Chinami and lead Yurika

The sisters grew up curling in Kitami City and started in 1998, and memorably won bronze together at PyeongChang 2018.

Chinami, the older of the two, is a social media star. At the time of writing, her Instagram page has 181,000 followers, which is comfortably the largest of any curling athlete.

Second Suzuki Yumi:

Suzuki started curling in elementary school in Tokoro when she was seven years old. And as you may have figured at this point, she comes from the same town as her team-mates, Kitami, Hokkaido, a curling hotbed.

Schedule: Women's curling at Beijing 2022 Olympics - Thursday 17 Feb:

Here is the schedule for Thursday 17 February (all times local China Standard Time):

• 14:05 Women's Round Robin Session 12 - Japan v Switzerland
• 14:05 Women's Round Robin Session 12 - ROC v Great Britain
• 14:05 Women's Round Robin Session 12 - Denmark v Canada
• 14:05 Women's Round Robin Session 12 - Republic of Korea v Sweden

From the Opening Ceremony to athlete action, here's where and how you can watch the Winter Games in your region via the Official Olympic Broadcast Partners.

Keep up with all the action in our Live Blog updates throughout Beijing 2022, here.