Jamie Sinclair


Jamie Ann Sinclair is an American-Canadian curler from Osgoode, Ontario and is a three-time U.S. National Champion. Her United States Curling Association membership is through the Charlotte Curling Association in Charlotte, North Carolina where she has a number of personal connections. She grew up in Manotick, Ontario, a suburb of Ottawa.

Curling career

2007–2013: Juniors

Sinclair won a gold medal at the 2007 Canada Winter Games, playing lead for the Rachel Homan rink. She was a member of the Homan rink that won the 2006 Bantam provincial championship. She won the Bantam provincial championship again in 2009 as a skip.
Sinclair played in her first World Curling Tour event, at the 2011 Challenge Casino Lac Leamy. Her rink finished with a 1–2 record in her pool, and did not make the playoffs.
Sinclair and her rink of Holly Donaldson, Chantal Allan and Casandra Raganold won the provincial women's junior championship in 2012, defeating Lauren Horton 9–3. This earned her rink the right to represent Ontario at the 2012 Canadian Junior Curling Championships where they finished with a 7–5 record, just missing the playoffs in 4th place.
Sinclair won her second straight provincial junior title in 2013, with a new front end of Katelyn Wasylkiw and Erin Jenkins with Donaldson still at third. At the 2013 Canadian Junior Curling Championships, her team did make the playoffs, but lost in the semi-final to Manitoba's Shannon Birchard, settling for third place.

2013–2016: Moving to the United States

For the 2013–14 season, Sinclair played on WCT teams on both sides of the border, playing third for the Ottawa-based Brit O'Neill rink, and third for the St. Paul, Minnesota-based Alexandra Carlson rink. With the Carlson rink, Sinclair played in the 2014 United States Women's Curling Championship, finishing with a 6–3 round robin record, but losing in a tie-breaker match. At the end of the season, Sinclair won the 2014 CIS/CCA Curling Championships, Canada's national university championship for Carleton University.
In 2014, Sinclair fully committed to playing out of the United States, and moved to Minnesota. For the 2014–15 season, she played third for the Nina Roth rink, which also consisted of Becca Hamilton and Tabitha Peterson. The team missed the playoffs at the 2015 United States Women's Curling Championship. The team played in two Grand Slam events, missing the playoffs at both the 2014 Colonial Square Ladies Classic and the 2014 Canadian Open of Curling.
In 2015, Roth left the team, with Sinclair assuming skipping duties, Hamilton throwing third rocks, Tabitha Peterson staying at lead and Tara Peterson joining the team at second. In their first season together, the team finished 4th at the 2016 United States Women's Curling Championship. The team played in one Slam, the 2015 National, going winless.

2016–2020: Success at Nationals

In 2016, Sinclair formed a new team with Alexandra Carlson, Vicky Persinger and Monica Walker. Sinclair found much more success with her new team, winning the 2017 U.S. Championships, but missed out on going to the World Championship due to Nina Roth earning more points throughout the season. They also played for the winning North American Team at the 2017 Continental Cup of Curling and made it to the quarterfinals of the last Grand Slam of the season, the 2017 Humpty's Champions Cup.
The team started the 2017–18 season by winning the AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic. At the 2017 United States Olympic Curling Trials, they missed their chance to play in the 2018 Winter Olympics when they lost a close three game final series to Nina Roth's team. Later that season they defended their national title, winning the 2018 United States Women's Curling Championship. Representing the United States at the 2018 World Women's Championship, they finished fourth, losing the bronze medal game to Russia's Victoria Moiseeva. Team Sinclair made history at the 2018 Players' Championship when they became the first American team to win a Grand Slam event. They finished the season with another quarterfinal finish at the 2018 Humpty's Champions Cup.
The United States Curling Association would change the high performance teams the following season for the next Olympic quadrennial. Sinclair would continue skipping with twin sisters Sarah and Taylor Anderson playing third and second respectively and Monica Walker would continue to play lead. The team did not have a very successful season up until the 2019 United States Women's Curling Championship where they defeat the Roth rink in final. At the 2019 World Women's Curling Championship, the team went 6–6 finishing in seventh place, just missing the playoffs.
The following season, Walker announced she would be retiring from competitive curling. The team brought on Cory Christensen to play third with Sinclair's former teammate Vicky Persinger coming on to play second. The Anderson twins would play lead and alternate. Retired Canadian curler Cathy Overton-Clapham joined the High Performance Program as Team Sinclair's coach for the 2019–20 season. They would win the Red Deer Curling Classic World Curling Tour event.
At the 2020 United States Women's Championship Team Sinclair only lost one game in the round robin, earning the number one seed in the playoffs. In the 1 vs. 2 page playoff Sinclair lost to Tabitha Peterson's team, who they faced again in the final after defeating Ariel Traxler's junior team in the semifinals. Peterson defeated Team Sinclair a second time in the final, with a final score of 7–5, stopping Sinclair from tying Debbie McCormick's record of four National Titles in a row.

2020–present

In March 2020, after an early end to the curling season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sinclair announced via twitter that her teammates had decided to part ways with her. Later in the off-season it was announced that Sinclair had formed a new team, bringing Walker out of her short retirement to play at third, and adding two younger curlers for the front end, Cora Farrell and Elizabeth Cousins.

Personal life

Sinclair was born in Anchorage, Alaska, where her Canadian father was on military exchange.
In October 2016 it was announced that she would appear as "Miss July" in the 2017 Women of Curling calendar.
Sinclair was born with a hearing disability. She graduated Carleton University with an honours degree in International Business and did a year of study abroad in Chile.

Teams

Grand Slam record

When Sinclair won the 2018 Players' Championship, she became the first ever American skip to win a Grand Slam tournament.
Event2014–152015–162016–172017–182018–192019–20
MastersDNPDNPDNPQFQDNP
Tour ChallengeN/AT2DNPT2QDNP
The NationalN/AQDNPDNPQDNP
Canadian OpenQDNPDNPQDNPDNP
Players'DNPDNPDNPCDNPN/A
Champions CupN/ADNPQFQFQN/A

Former events