The US Men’s Curling team made history in South Korea while most of the United States slept early Saturday morning, winning its first ever gold medal in the sport.
The triumph of skip John Shuster and his team will go down as a milestone moment in the history of the sport in America, especially after an upset win over three-time defending gold medalist and continental rival Canada.
But the moment where the victory was perhaps its sweetest was soon made a bit awkward by a mixup the team soon noticed: they were given the wrong medals on the podium.
The US men's curling team just realized the gold medals they were awarded moments ago say "women's curling gold medal" on them. Their coaches are working on it … #pyeongchang2018 pic.twitter.com/PERIMuXN98
— Alyssa Roenigk (@alyroe) February 24, 2018
As it turns out, each Olympic medal is engraved with the name of the sport the medal was awarded in. And the US team was given the gold medal for women’s curling, not men’s.
It’s a bit of a Steve Harvey or La La Land situation here, I guess, but it’s not like they had to replay an extra end and crown silver medalist Sweden instead. They seemed to be in a good mood about it all despite the mixup.
LOL! @TeamUSA #Curling laughs as they tell me they were given the Women’s Gold Medals! They are happy to wait for the swap 😂 @usacurl #pyeongchang2018 pic.twitter.com/1eejzUN3pW
— Kenny Holmes (@KHOLMESlive) February 24, 2018
It’s hard to get mad about something like this considering how happy the moment was for Team USA. This GIF kind of sums it up, really.
— Superdrunkmark69 (@cjzer0) February 24, 2018
After all, gold medals are gold medals, right?
