Curling is a sport often dubbed as a game of inches.
There may be no one who can identify more with the phrase than Kelowna’s Jock Tyre.
The coach of Germany’s national women’s team, Tyre watched the Daniela Jentsch foursome miss out on a potential Olympic berth earlier this month by the narrowest of margins.
At the European region Olympic qualification event in Pilsen, Czech Republic, Germany lost a pair of extra-end games, including one on a measurement against Italy, to finish the round robin with a 2-4 record.
A 4-2 record would have been enough to get Germany into the three-team playoff, with two berths to South Korea on the line.
As it turned out, China and Denmark will be off to Pyeongchang, South Korea in February 2018.
“When you have an Olympic dream and get so close without seeing it happen, it’s devastating,” said Tyre, the manager of the Kelowna Curling Club. “We were the second best team going in there, but it didn’t turn out that way.
“I’ve always had a dream of going to the Olympics,” he added. “We spent six months preparing for that moment, so it’s disappointing.”
Missed opportunities aside, there’s nothing Tyre would accept in a trade for his coaching experience with Germany’s national team.
Among the many highlights was travelling to St. Gallen, Switzerland for the European Curling Championships in November where the Germans were among the 20 women’s and men’s competing teams.
“Being with all those people and teams from different countries with different languages, it was a great experience,” said Tyre. “I know so many people from past events, it’s nice to work together with them. It was cool just to see the European Championships.”
The German women have qualified for the World Women’s Curling Championship this coming March in North Bay, ON.
Pending approval from Germany’s governing body for curling, Tyre will once again serve as the coach for Team Jentsch.
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