By Adam Laskaris

It'll be a pair of European curling powers fighting for gold in Cortina.

On Friday, the women's semifinals went down at the 2026 Winter Olympics, with Sweden and Switzerland downing Canada and the United States, respectively.

The women's gold medal game goes down Sunday at 5:05 a.m. ET, while the bronze medal game is set for Saturday morning at 8:05 a.m. ET.

Sweden vs. Canada

Anna Hasselborg's rink will have a shot at another Olympic gold.

After four straight single points traded back and fourth and a blank in the fifth end, Sweden made the first agressive move of the women's semifinal when they ended up with two in the sixth end. That 4-2 lead proved enough to hold on, with Canada suddenly on the back foot and unable to build back from the deficit.

An attempted angle raise for a score of two or three in the seventh by Canadian skip Rachel Homan had a high degree of difficulty, and ended up as a steal with Hasselborg already sitting shot rock. The miss gave the Swedes a 5-2 lead that would prove difficult to recover from. Homan picked up a single in the eighth end, but gave up another in the ninth and was run out of rocks in the tenth end for a 6-3 loss.

After winning for the last two world championships, Canada will have to look to recover against their rival Americans for a chance to claim the country's first women's curling medal since 2014.

"We're not done here yet," Homan told CBC's Bryan Mudryk following the loss. "Kudos to (Sweden), we were not quite as sharp... they played a great game."

"You're not gonna win every game, we're gonna come back and fight hard tomorrow."

"It was a grind out there. They played well. We struggled to get the rocks in the perfect spot to get a multiple, and they were on us and cracked a multiple on us, and then we couldn't catch up," Canada second Emma Miksew added in the mixed zone. "They made all the shots when they needed to."

Homan's rink started the week 1-3, with an Olympic medal seemingly out of their grasp. After five straight wins to simply make the playoffs, they've now got a chance to still come home with some hardware.

"Just incredibly proud of my team, to be honest," Homan told reporters after the game.

Switzerland vs. USA

After four world championships, Switzerland's Silvana Tirinzoni will finally claim an Olympic medal, with only the colour now in question.

Tirinzoni’s rink had what could perhaps be described as a business-like week in Cortina. While they were never at their absolute peak form in the round robin, they were the second team to clinch a playoff spot and never were in much real danger of not making the final four. After dropping their final round robin game to the Americans, they were able to come through when it mattered in the rubber match.

In the ninth end, Tabitha Peterson attempted an in-off for 3 while down 5-3, but was only able to pick up one and head into the tenth end down one without hammer. An open hit by fourth Alina Paetz for two sealed the deal, with Switzerland claiming the 6-3 victory and a spot in the gold medal game.

Lead photo by Anil Mungal/TCG