Australian curlers Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt end Winter Olympics on a high with ‘upset of the tournament’

Hours after announcing they were leaving the Winter Olympics early due to Tahli Gill’s positive COVID-19 test, Australia’s mixed doubles curlers shocked the defending champions.

Gill and partner Dean Hewitt earned Australian curling’s maiden win by beating Switzerland 9-6 on Sunday, the victory coming after seven straight losses.

Not satisfied with that the pair then won again later in the day, beating PyeongChang 2018 gold medallists Canada 10-8 - as you can watch in the video above.

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Canada, pairing PyeongChang 2018 gold medallist John Morris with 2017 women’s world champion Rachel Homan, had won five of their first seven matches.

The Aussies’ victory was described as the ‘upset of the tournament’ by the commentator.

“It’s incredible - our lifelong dream is to come to the Olympics and to win is just great,” Hewitt said.

“We’re so pleased and happy with how we played and we’ve been in it all these games and we’re so pleased we broke through and got the win.”

The Australians curlers were headed for Beijing airport on Sunday with the AOC initially announcing that they weren’t able to play in their final two round robin games after Gill returned a positive test.

Originally contracting COVID-19 in Canada in December, Gill’s CT levels have waivered between positive and negative during her time in Beijing and she has been managed as a ‘close contact’, which means restricted movements and twice-daily testing.

She and Hewitt were also put into two days’ isolation when she returned a positive test on arrival.

But the pair showed their resilience to break through for their first victory of the competition with the win over Switzerland.

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