By John Hodge
The Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 are underway, where many of the world’s best men’s curling teams look to win gold.
The athletes will compete at the Cortina Olympic Curling Stadium, with the men’s round robin beginning on Wednesday. The semifinals will occur on Feb. 19, followed by the bronze medal game on Feb. 20 and the gold medal game on Feb. 21.
The field includes 14 medal winners, eight of whom have won gold, making it arguably the best ever.
In Part 2, let’s take a look at the next five teams that will compete for gold.
GERMANY
Lineup: Marc Muskatewitz (skip), Benjamin Kapp (third), Felix Messenzehl (second), Johannes Scheuerl (lead), Mario Trevisiol (alternate)
World ranking: No. 17
The squad out of Curling Club Füssen in southcentral Germany is the youngest in the field with an average age of 24. Muskatewitz is the oldest of the bunch at 30, while his teammates are each 22 or 23.
Muskatewitz has already appeared in seven world championships, with his best result coming in 2024 when he reached the quarterfinal round after an 8-4 round robin. He won the European Curling Championships that same year, defeating Mouat in the final.
Germany’s third, Benjamin Kapp, is the son of longtime German curler Andy Kapp, who earned five medals at the World Men’s Curling Championship and qualified for the Winter Olympics four times.
NORWAY
Lineup: Magnus Ramsfjell (skip), Martin Sesasker (third), Bendik Ramsfjell (second), Gaute Nepstad (lead), Wilhelm Naess (alternate)
World ranking: No. 16
The team from the Trondheim Curlingklubb has plenty of international experience, though Ramsfjell has reached the podium only once at a major international event.
Ramsfjell, a 28-year-old native of Tønsberg, won bronze at the European Championship in 2024, his second of three berths in the event. He has also fallen short of the podium in five trips to the World Men’s Curling Championship, faring best in 2023 and 2025 with losses in the qualification games. The team enjoyed its deepest run at a Grand Slam in 2022, losing in the semifinals of the Masters in Oakville, Ont.
Ramsfjell is also an accomplished mixed doubles player, making the playoffs at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in 2018 and finishing fourth in 2022. He will not be representing Norway in that event at the Winter Olympics, with Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten set to compete.
SWEDEN
Lineup: Niklas Edin (skip), Oskar Eriksson (third), Rasmus Wranå (second), Christoffer Sundgren (lead), Simon Olofsson (alternate)
World ranking: No. 12
The reigning Olympic gold medallists from the Karlstads Curlingklubb struggled in the Crown Royal Players’ Championship, going 0-5 in the round robin with losses to Olympic opponents Schwaller, Mouat, Casper, and Xu.
With that said, only a fool would count out a seven-time world champion and three-time Olympic medallist. Edin, a 40-year-old native of Örnsköldsvik, arguably has the best resumé in curling history, and the team around him is sensational.
When asked if this year’s field is the best of all time, Edin expressed mixed feelings.
“Yes and no. I think we say that every year, but it’s hard to compare eras against each other. There are just more curling teams that are trying, playing hard for the world rankings, and playing the (Grand) Slams and traveling,” he said.
“We’ve got more countries in it now, so obviously the top is stronger, but is it tougher to win the Olympics now than it was a few Olympics ago? I don’t know. It’s kind of the same, I think — it keeps evolving and every Olympics is always the toughest.”
Canada won three consecutive gold medals at the Olympics from 2006-14, though three different teams represented the country over that span of time. If Edin wins gold in Italy, he’ll become the first men’s team to successfully defend an Olympic title of their own.
“It’s the big one waiting four years, and we’re super excited to both go to Italy and play there, but just kind of the atmosphere of an Olympics is always cool,” Edin said. “It would mean a lot to defend a gold title, an Olympic title. That’s never happened before, and it’s very tough to do these days, I think, so if we can achieve that, we can die happy.”
SWITZERLAND
Lineup: Yannick Schwaller (skip/third), Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel (vice skip/fourth), Sven Michel (second), Pablo Lachat-Couchepin (lead), Kim Schwaller (alternate)
World ranking: No. 2
The reigning world silver medallists are led by Yannick Schwaller and fourth-rock thrower Benoît Schwarz-van Berkel, the latter of whom won bronze with Peter de Cruz in PyeongChang 2018. The two joined forces in 2022, and the move has been fruitful, leading to two medals at the World Men’s Curling Championship and two medals at the European Curling Championships.
For Schwaller, 30, the Winter Olympics have been on his mind since the first time he threw a stone.
“It’s been a dream since I started curling,” he said. “I think I said it after the first practice I ever did when I was 13 years old, ‘I want to make it to the Olympics.’ It’s unreal a bit, but it’s just great. I look forward to showing what we did as a team the whole four years, what we worked for.”
The team from Geneva didn’t have to win an event to qualify for the Winter Olympics. Instead, they were selected by the Swiss Olympic Association in June. It couldn’t have been a tough decision, given Schwaller’s world ranking, and it allowed the team to start preparing earlier than most of their Olympic opponents.
“I think for us, (the timing of the selection) was an advantage. We were able to have talks, prepare during the summer with various things. We were able to talk to previous Olympic athletes and get some opinions and talk about pressure. We were able to have some talks already early on with sport psychologists, so that’s been cool,” Schwaller said.
The Swiss squad reached the semifinal round of the Crown Royal Players’ Championship earlier this month, knocking off fellow Olympic teams including Niklas Edin, Daniel Casper, and Mouat.
“(Winning gold) would be awesome, of course, but we do not try to think about results and medals too early,” Schwaller said. “We try to just put on the best possible performance that we can and if we have fun along the way, I think a very good result will be there for us in the end.”
UNITED STATES
Lineup: Daniel Casper (skip), Luc Violette (third), Ben Richardson (second), Aidan Oldenburg (lead), Rich Ruohonen (alternate)
World ranking: No. 6
Based out of the Chaska Curling Centre in Minnesota, Casper and his crew upset U.S. curling icon and 2018 Olympic gold medallist John Shuster in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in November.
Shuster went a perfect 6-0 during the round robin, but Casper won the best-of-three final despite starting all three games without the hammer. It was a passing-of-the-torch moment for U.S. curling with Casper, 24, just starting to make his mark on the international level, while at least some of Shuster’s veteran squad are planning to step back from the game at the end of this season.
“It’s awesome (to be going to the Olympics), it’s what you dream of growing up when you start the sport,” Casper said. “It’s a little overwhelming to be quite honest, and we’ve been so busy since then, it’s kinda hard to take everything in, so I’m trying to do a good job of appreciating it.”
Despite the rivalry — Shuster eliminated Casper from the playoffs in the U.S. Men’s Curling Championship in 2023 and 2024 — there’s no animosity between the two teams. Casper said his team is “really good friends” with Shuster’s squad, who will be trying their best to help Casper win gold in Italy.
“We’ve gotten dinner with them multiple times, phone calls, we’re talking to them all the time, so they’ve been super helpful (in our preparation for the Olympics),” Casper said. “They’ve offered even from back home, they’re like, ‘We’ll look at other teams and track them and whatever you guys want us to do,’ so it’s a real team effort.”
Chris Plys, the third for Team Shuster and general manager of Rock League team Frontier Curling Club, will also be accompanying Casper and his team to Italy, where he’ll serve as a veteran presence for the second-youngest squad in the field.
