A Cowra connection to historic Australian curling squad

Despite the fact the nearest ice rink is hours away, and the mercury very rarely hits below freezing, Cowra can lay claim to part of this historic achievement through Tahli's mum Lynette, who grew up in the town.

Lynette Gill, nee Hughes, is the daughter of Audrey and the late David Hughes, who also had sons Brett, Warren, Craig and Kent.

Mrs Gill, who has also competed and trains curlers, says her love of the sport started after watching the 1998 Winter Olympics.

"I saw it when I was in my 30s... Growing up in Cowra, I had never seen it before," she said.

"I thought, I really want to try it because it's so different... Just because I saw it on TV."

After a move to the sunshine state and starting a family, Mrs Gill dedicated to have a crack at curling.

"So we moved near a rink, there are two rinks in Brisbane," she said.

"I rang [one of] them and said "Do you have curling?" and they said no but the other rink that they manage as well on the south side, it has a whole heap of stones with dust under a staircase."

After finding another group of people interested in the sport, Mrs Gill helped to develop a foundation and quickly found herself competing internationally.

"The times they gave us then was Friday night, 10 to 12 o'clock at night," she said.

"I think I did it three or four times and then joined the women's team and went to Taipei to compete a few months later.

"I had no idea what I was getting into but... competed there and just loved it ever since."

The love of the curling then became a family affair for the Gills, with Lynette starting a junior women's team and daughters Tahli, Kirby and Jayna taking to the ice.

Mrs Gill said Tahli's success at the Olympics has been "unbelievable" taking into account Australia's lack of training facilities and the COVID issues plaguing the team.

"To be in the top ten is outstanding," Mrs Gill said.

"It's quite the feat. Other teams practice all day, every day with their partners on proper ice, different coaches."

Following a positive COVID test, Tahli and Hewitt thought they were going to be sent back to Australia before the end of their campaign, however the pair were given a last minute reprieve and chalked up wins against the 2018 PyeongChang silver and gold medalists, Switzerland and Canada.

"So she's playing, isolated, playing, isolated, warms up by herself, does everything by herself... it's not quite what she thought the Olympics was going to be like," she said.

"Up until that day, she was ringing me saying, "Well my bags are packed and we are leaving in an hour"... and she was really upset all night and then they went, "Nope sorry, you're back on the ice in one hour" and they weren't even at the rink at that point, she grabbed the wrong glove.

"She was just so pleased to have played, she did feel like she was letting down not only Dean, the country, the sport... They didn't care at that point whether they win or lose, they just really wanted to play and finish the campaign.

"I think they're inspired more than ever now to do the best they can in the future and 2026 [Winter Olympics] is definitely on their hit list, they really want to get to that."

Following Tahli and Dean's campaign, Mrs Gill said she hopes the sport may start to take off in Australia.

"We're hoping that people get inspired by this, by Tahli and I think they have already, it's just been amazing," she said.

"Usually it's a butt of jokes, the curling, going "Oh it's so easy", but it's actually not and I think it's showed you have to be fairly athletic for it, you have to be very skilled.

"To get participation and depth in the sport would be the only way we can grow. We want to introduce wheelchair curling, which is a Paralympics sport,

"There's so many things we can do but hopefully people will get interested."

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