Australia's Tahli Gill, Dean Hewitt win bronze at curling world championships in Canada, but qualification for Milano-Cortina 2026 remains elusive

Australia won its first-ever world championship medal in the sport of curling in an historic moment on Sunday — but a narrow defeat in an earlier match means the duo are yet to book their place in the 2026 Winter Olympics, leaving them with cause for concern.

Beijing 2022 Olympians Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt won the bronze-medal match in the mixed doubles competition at the world championships in Canada, trumping a pair from Estonia in a 9-2 drubbing in Fredericton in Canada’s east.

However, whether the duo will compete at the Olympics in Italy next February remains to be seen after they lost to Scotland 9-6 in a semi-final.

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They will leave Canada thrilled with creating history, but ruing that they didn’t secure Olympic qualification.

“Since 2018 we have built and built year in, year out, got to the 2022 Olympics and that was a fantastic feeling, and then this year we have had close to 11 podiums,” Hewitt said.

“It’s impressive and I am proud of what we have done.

“We have come up a little bit short for direct Olympic qualification which is bittersweet, but still getting the bronze, [we] can’t be too disappointed with that.”

Ten teams will contest the mixed doubles competition at Milano-Cortina 2026, including the eight highest-ranked countries according to points earned at the 2024 and 2025 world championships.

Australia’s Gill and Hewitt will aim to snap up one of the two remaining spots at an Olympic qualification event in December, to be held in Kelowna in Canada’s south.

They defeated eight countries at Canada’s world championships, beating the Czech Republic, Estonia, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the USA, and only lost twice, to Japan and Scotland.

“It’s huge for us,” Gill said of the historic moment.

“We have worked really hard for this moment, and like Dean said it’s a bittersweet feeling, but [it] definitely gives us a lot of confidence moving forward and the momentum isn’t going to stop here.”