By Kevin Snow, European curling writer
Following a victory at the Crown Royal Players’ Championship in January, Silvana Tirinzoni stunned many in the crowd when she indicated that it might be her final Grand Slam of Curling event.
Then, in the aftermath of Switzerland’s loss to Sweden in the gold medal match at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, Tirinzoni delayed any talk on the team’s future, indicating they’d sit down after the world championships to make a final decision.
That timeline has taken another turn. Mere days after taking home the silver medal in Italy, Team Tirinzoni rushed back home to compete at the Swiss Curling Championships in Bern.
After finishing 4-0 in the round-robin portion, Team Tirinzoni was defeated 2-1 in a best-of-three final by Team Xenia Schwaller. The four-time world champs are now done for the season, and Team Schwaller will make their first trip to the BKT World Women’s Curling Championship that begins March 14 in Calgary.
With several teams already announcing roster changes to plan for the new Olympic cycle, a final decision by the 46-year-old Tirinzoni on her future could have major implications on the world’s No. 1 team.
What a Tirinzoni-less team would look like remains unclear at this point. Would they just plug-and-play in the third spot with a new face, while Alina Pätz assumes the role of skip and continues to throw final stones? Losing someone that Pätz calls “the smartest skip in women’s curling” would be a massive hole to fill, regardless of how you look at it.
One thing that has become crystal clear is that Schwaller appears poised to ascend the ranks of women’s curling in Switzerland.
The 23-year-old led her team (Selina Rychiger, lead; Fabienne Rieder, second; Selina Gafner, third) to a record of 67-29 this season — including three championships — and a world ranking of sixth overall heading into worlds.
In addition to knocking off Team Tirinzoni in the Swiss nationals, their impressive list of victories this season included triumphs over former world No. 1 Team Homan, Team Wranå, Team Constantini and Team Gim.
In their second full season competing in the Grand Slam of Curling, Team Schwaller qualified for the playoffs in three of the five Grand Slam of Curling events, including their first two semifinal appearances at the CO-OP Tour Challenge and KIOTI GSOC Tahoe.
With the 2024 World Junior Championship title already on their resume, a strong showing by Team Schwaller in Calgary will put the rest of the curling world on notice for years to come.
THE WAITING GAME
Despite capturing their third consecutive national titles at the Scottish Curling Championships last week, both Fay Henderson and Ross Whyte are still unclear whether their teams will represent Scotland at their respective world championships.
The women’s worlds begin March 14 in Calgary, while the 2026 LGT World Men’s Curling Championship runs from March 27 to April 4 in Ogden, Utah.
Unlike most countries that use their national championship tournament to determine the representatives for worlds, Scottish Curling created the following selection guidelines:
• The selection for World Championships will happen as soon as is practicable after the Scottish Championships 2026 in order to ensure the most recent results are taken into consideration (this update is as a result of a decision made at the November 2025 Scottish Curling Board);
• Those (male & female) selected for the Olympics will not be considered for selection for the 2026 World Curling Championships;
• Those selected for Olympics will not be required to (but may choose, if logistics allow, to) play in the Scottish Championship save that alternates at the Olympics will be required to play (ordinarily the professional teams are required to do so).
In addition:
The selection panel will consist of three voting members, one of whom is the Scottish Curling representative while the other two are the Executive Performance Director of British Curling and the Olympic Head Coach.
The selection would be long overdue for Henderson, who was not chosen to represent Scotland in her two previous national title seasons. She was an alternate on Rebecca Morrison’s team in 2025 and was not part of Morrison’s entry in 2024.
Bruce Mouat's team was picked over Whyte for the previous two men's worlds and won gold last year.
Neither Mouat nor Morrison, who represented Great Britain at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, competed in the Scottish Curling Championships. Henderson was an alternate on Morrison’s team in Cortina, and Kyle Waddell served in the same role on Mouat’s team. Waddell’s team lost 8-6 in an extra end to Whyte in the Scottish men’s final.
Scottish Curling did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the possible timeline of the team announcements.
