By Ben Hoppe, U.S. curling writer
The last time Tabitha and Tara Peterson were at the Winter Olympics, everything felt oddly normal. Beijing’s post-COVID Winter Olympics was not necessarily the “good” type of normal, it just happened to be so similar to their previous events.
The 2022 Winter Olympics were largely without spectators, and their family did not travel with them. With her family on the other side of the world, Tara would text her husband and her parents in between games like she would for any other bonspiel.
It almost felt like it was any one of their other events, not like the Olympic Winter Games.
While Tara was texting her family, two of her Beijing teammates, Nina Roth and Aileen Geving, were regularly on video calls with their young children back home. She confessed she didn’t really understand what they were experiencing at the time, but four years later, Tara said she “totally gets it.”
In 2024, Tara brought a baby boy, Eddie, into the world, while her sister Tabitha also gave birth to her first child, Noelle, a few months later. For both new moms, this trip to Italy is going to be filled with lasting memories. It is not going to feel like any other event.
And this time, like a truly “normal” Olympics, the teammates will have the opportunity to share this experience with their entire family. Skip Tabitha is looking forward to creating memories with her daughter.
“I think it’ll be fun to look back at it in 10 years when they can kind of understand it a little better and just be like, ‘Look at what we did, and you were there,'" she said.
"I'M NOT DOING IT FOR MYSELF"
When they became mothers, the priorities in life shifted for the Peterson sisters. While qualifying for the Winter Olympics was the goal they strived for on the ice, their children helped them realize there are more important things in life than the rocks, the pebbled ice, and the Olympic rings.
Tabitha recalled a point during the Olympic Qualifying Event in Kelowna, B.C., where the team had to win out to make it to the qualification game, and she reflected on why she was there, just one loss away from going home. In that moment of reflection, she realized her motivation.
Peterson wanted to go to the Olympics again for her daughter. She wanted to go for her friends and family who travelled to Kelowna to support them. She wanted to do this for her lead, Taylor Anderson-Heide, who had never been to the Winter Olympics. She wanted this for everyone except for one person.
“I’m not doing it for myself at this point,” she realized. “That kind of switched my brain around a little bit and just made me feel more joy from everything. When you have fun, and you’re joyful with what you’re doing, I feel like things are easier.”
Tara echoed her sister’s sentiment.
“It’s the village that helped us raise our children, so we can be competing," she said. "… We’re doing it for them because they put the time in for us.”
The sisters were able to meet their goals and give back to those people who had supported them. Team Peterson won the rest of their games in Kelowna, including the final qualification game against Norway.
This time, their village will not be stuck on the other side of the world. The Petersons are expecting around 30 family and friends to make the trek to Cortina. They’ll get to feed off the energy in the stands from friends, from family, and from the many other curling fans from the United States who will be travelling to Italy for the Olympic Winter Games.
Team Peterson has stepped up their play in recent months, and it’s been the fans in the stands who have provided that extra bump for them.
“We knew we were missing that piece,” Tabitha said.
With crowds and loud supporting sections at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, the Olympic Qualifying Event, and the sold-out crowds at the Crown Royal Players’ Championship in Steinbach, Man., Team Peterson has been feeding off the energy. Tara, in particular, has loved every moment of it.
“I just get so much energy and joy from the people in the stands, and that pumps me up which then makes me compete better and perform," she said.
LEAVING A LEGACY
Over the past year, as they’ve travelled the road to Milano Cortina 2026, Tabitha and Tara have been following the journeys of other mothers of Team USA. They have seen how bobsledder Kaillie Humphries has trained while pregnant and then gotten herself back into position to stand on the podium in Italy. They have watched the journey of Olympic medallist Elana Meyers Taylor, who in addition to having a child, has been breaking barriers and leaving a lasting legacy in bobsled.
Tara appreciates how women competing either while pregnant or getting back into competition after giving birth is becoming more widespread. She noted that it’s no longer a choice that someone has to make; it becomes a mindset shift of figuring out how to make everything fit into life.
“Icons like (Humphries) and Elana Meyers Taylor have shown you can do it all,” Tara said. “Because of athletes like those, I hope people then look up to us one day as curlers in that same sense.”
The Peterson sisters already become someone curlers, young women in particular, can look up to. This is Tabitha's third Olympic Winter Games. Only Debbie McCormick (four) has made more appearances for the U.S. in women's curling on the world’s biggest sporting stage.
“Overall, it’s been a heck of a ride,” reflected Team USA's skip.
With a renewed outlook on curling, the Peterson sisters get to experience this ride in Cortina, and no matter what happens, someday they’ll be talking about this adventure, their passion for curling, and their drive to be the best they can be with Noelle and Eddie.
Tab hopes they can use it as a lesson as the cousins grow up.
“Having them see their parents and their moms do this amazing thing, I hope will kind of inspire them and put them down like a road to do something that they have a lot of passion for as well," she said.
Lead photo courtesy of USA Curling / Michael Woolheater.
