How USA curling legend John Shuster went from heavily criticised to history-making Olympic champion

When John Shuster won curling gold for the USA at PyeongChang 2018 his life changed forever. Having won an Olympic bronze medal in 2006 he had some experience in being in his nation's spotlight, but nothing could have prepared him for what happened after winning gold.

“I was part of the team that won a bronze medal back in 2006 and we did some local stuff but it's funny how a gold medal is a little bit different,” he said at the Team USA Media summit at the start of a winter sport season culminating in the Beijing 2022 Games.

Shuster took time after his Olympic win to savour the success with his team.

“We really try to embrace all of those opportunities, throwing out first pitches and that kind of stuff, and enjoy it. We also try to take our families along for that, because we knew that that wasn’t going to obviously last forever.”

The journey from that Olympic bronze medal to basking in the glory of an Olympic triumph was one full of false dawns, criticism, and hard work.

Heading into Olympic qualification, which takes place from November 12 to 21, Shuster and his team are gearing up to defend their Olympic title.

Here are the top thing you need to know about Olympic champion curler John Shuster.

Olympic triumph at Turin 2006

The USA won their first ever Olympic medal in curling at the Olympic Games in 2006. At that time, John Shuster was part of Pete Fenson’s rink.

After that successful season, Shuster left to form his own team. This was a bold move. A skip is the focal point and is normally the player who takes the final shots at each end.

Fighting criticism after struggles at Vancover 2010 and 2014

The switch has made John Shuster into the USA’s most successful skip of all-time. But he came in for an immense amount of criticism for his team’s performances at the Olympic Games of 2010 and 2014.

Shuster has won all three of the men's team Olympic Trials that he’s competed in, and has consistently been in the top five at the world championships.

However, the Olympics in 2010 didn’t got to plan and the USA finished in last place. In 2014, the improvement was marginal: they finished second to last.

“People were mean,” he said. “I could probably read mean tweets for three hours from 2010 and not read the same tweet twice.”

“The sport I loved just caused me so much pain and agony,” he told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

John Shuster: ‘The rejects’ and the return to the Olympic stage

Following those disappointments, Shuster was cut from the USA’s high-performance scheme. But rather than wallow in self-pity, the Minnesota man started his own team. Their nickname was: ‘The Rejects’.

It wasn’t long before The Rejects won the national championship and were invited to join the high performance program. Another attempt at Olympic glory was on the cards.

Team Shuster's Olympic gold medal performance

The 2018 Olympics didn’t start well. Shuster and his team lost our of the first six matches. Another loss would mean another disappointment. But they rallied and scraped through to the semi-finals with a 5-4 round robin record.

An upturn in form then saw the team beat Canada and Sweden to win the first ever Olympic gold medal in curling for the United States.

Covid scare and returning to fitness

John’s wife, Sara, contracted coronavirus after attending the 2020 U.S. Club National Championships.

He was never tested but didn’t suffer from any symptoms and instead utilised the down-time in the pandemic to reset.

Shuster told World Curling that he lost 25 pounds – just over 11 kg – during the pandemic, and was able to spend time with his family and go fishing ahead of his push for an Olympic spot and the right to defend his Olympic title.

Aiming for glory at the Olympics in China

Shuster missed out on his attempt for qualification in the mixed doubles curling event at Beijing 2022.

But the qualification process for his men’s team starts on 12 November. The final is scheduled for 21 November.

“We are training very hard and doing everything we can to get back and win the Olympic trials so we can represent the United States again at the upcoming Olympics [and] hopefully get a chance to go there and try to defend our gold medal.”