Curling-Sweden's Hasselborg wakes up with winning feeling, then delivers
CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 20 : Sweden skip Anna Hasselborg said she woke up on Friday with an unshakeable belief her team would beat Canada in the semi-finals of the women's curling competition at the Winter Olympics, and so they did.
Hasselborg has had a dismal head-to-head record against the Canadian rink and entered the game having lost 12 of her last 13 meetings against skip Rachel Homan, including an 8-6 defeat in the round-robin stage on Tuesday.
Asked how she bucked that trend and beat Canada 6-3 to enter the gold medal game, she said: "We haven't beat her at all this season, and we've played her many times.
"I woke up this morning and just told the girls, 'I really believe we're winning today'. I just had a great feeling, and we had a great meeting last night analysing their statistics and our statistics.
"I just trusted that. I had a great feeling, but you can never be sure... It was more about confidence and telling the team that we believe in ourselves."
Sweden, who won gold at the Pyeongchang Games in 2018, face Silvana Tirinzoni's Switzerland in the finale of the curling competition on Sunday.
The two teams met in the bronze medal game in Beijing four years ago, which was won by Sweden.
"It's going to be a heck of a battle out there," Hasselborg said.
"Both teams are going to throw everything at each other. Hopefully, we'll have the last rock in the last end, or even the 11th. I think that's going to decide this game. We're just going to have so much fun, and enjoy being out there one more time...
"We're better now (than we were in Pyeongchang). I'm saying we're better technically. We're a better well-knit group, better tactically."
