Tyler George is an American curler from Duluth, Minnesota. He is a three-time U.S. Champion, 2016 World bronze medalist, and 2018 Olympic gold medalist. Since the 2018 Olympics, he has taken a break from playing competitive curling, instead spending time as an ambassador and coach for the sport.
Curling career
Juniors
George competed at the United States Junior National Championships several times but never made it past the semifinals. However, in 2001 he was invited to be the alternate on Andy Roza's team at the 2001 World Junior Curling Championships, where they defeated Scotland's David Edwards in the bronze medal match. In 2002 George teamed up with Shellan Reed and Patti Luke, two of the previous year's Minnesota Women's Club State Champions, and Gary Luke, to play as a mixed team. They won the Minnesota Mixed State Championship and made it to the finals of the National Mixed Championship, ultimately earning silver medals after losing to Brady Clark's team.
After the 2014 Winter Olympics, the United States Curling Association held an athlete combine to determine which curlers to include in their High Performance Program, aimed at having better success at the next Olympics. George did not attend due to his work. After the combine John Shuster, three-time Olympian at that point, was dropped from the HPP and in response created a new team nicknamed "The Rejects", bringing on fellow combine rejects John Landsteiner and Matt Hamilton at lead and second, respectively, and George at third. They maintained this line-up for four seasons and found great success. At the National Championships in they defeated both HPP teams to win the gold medal. Representing the United States at the in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Team Shuster missed out on the playoffs when they lost a tiebreaker to Finland's Aku Kauste. As a result of its success, Team Shuster was added to the High Performance Program for 2016. George and his team came up just short of defending their national title in, losing to Brady Clark in the final. Despite finishing in second, Team Shuster earned enough points throughout the season to secure their return trip to the. In Basel, Switzerland they defeated Japan's Yusuke Morozumi in the bronze medal match, earning the first World Men's medal for the United States since 2007. For the 2016–17 season they added Joe Polo, a former teammate of George and Shuster, as alternate and won the. At the, their third Worlds in a row, they lost in the bronze medal game against Team Switzerland, skipped by Peter de Cruz. At the 2017 United States Olympic Curling Trials George and his team beat Heath McCormick's team in a best-of-three final series to earn his first trip to the Olympics. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the US team lost four of its first six matches and needed to win all of its three remaining matches to qualify for the playoffs, but all of its remaining opponents were currently among the top four teams. Nevertheless, the US team won all three matches to finish the round-robin in third place with a record of 5–4. In the semifinals they defeated Canada's Kevin Koe, a two-time world champion, to reach the gold-medal match versus Niklas Edin's team representing Sweden. The gold-medal game was close through seven ends, with the score tied 5–5, but the United States scored five in the eighth end to set up a 10–7 victory. This was the first Olympic gold medal in curling for the United States.
After winning gold, George elected to temporarily step away from curling, citing his desires to take time off to "...recharge the battery, let my body heal." He has become a sports ambassador for the United States Curling Association, making appearances and doing outreach to the curling community in the United States. George coached Luc Violette's Team United States at the 2020 World Junior Curling Championships. They finished in seventh place.
