Their homes were 2,000km apart, they didn’t have dedicated curling ice in Australia and there was a long road ahead, but Tahli wasted no time saying yes.

Despite being in the Australian Curling Federation (ACF) since 2011 it wasn’t until 2018 when the pair got to train together for the first time, in New Zealand – hosts of Australia’s national championships.

Meanwhile Kim Forge, President of the ACF, was still working away to solve the question on everyone’s lips.

“For years our stakeholders have always said ‘when are you going to get someone to the Olympics?’ That question I have had so many times,” Forge said.

“I kept saying ‘we’re trying, we are going to get there.’ It’s very difficult. There are 67 countries in the world competing for the nine spots plus the host nation [spot]. I don’t think many people know that.

“They think it’s automatic when you become the national team that you go to the Olympics. That’s not the case. We’re having to compete against curlers that are professional athletes in their countries with a huge amount of depth, even in their organisational structures.

“Laurie (Weeden, ACF Vice President) and I are volunteers. That’s no excuse at all, but Scottish Curling and British Curling comes with multimillion dollar budgets to fund their athletes and administration.”

Come 2019 Tahli and Dean worked their way up to competing at the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Norway. It was there they had an astonishing result, placing fourth in a field of 48 nations. It was the best ever world curling championships finish for Australia.

“After the 2019 breakthrough performance I was on my way back from Norway and I thought ‘Oh my god, this is amazing. What do we do for Dean and Tahli to actually get them to the next level? Who is the best player in the world? It’s John Morris. I wonder if he would consider [helping us].’

“Dean and Tahli were worth finding the best to get them to the Olympics. John is the best. We didn’t want to settle.”

John Morris is a legend of Canadian curling and has just about done it all in the sport. He’s a two-time Olympic gold medallist and went into Beijing 2022 at 43 years old as the defending mixed doubles Olympic champion.

His father, Earle Morris, had coached Dean’s father Steve Hewitt.

“Our men’s team, prior to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, had secured Earle Morris as their coach. So we have had a relationship with the Morris family for quite some time,” Forge said.

“For Canadian elite players and coaches there’s two schools of thought. Some of them want to keep it within the country themselves, and some of them are happy to help developing countries like ours. So we needed to find out what John’s thoughts were.

“Our board member Ian Palangio called up John and said ‘We have a really great team who could learn from your experience. Would you be interested in doing a few camps with them?’”

“We didn’t necessarily approach him to be the full-time coach because he was still competing, and he was at the last Olympics and still at the top of his game. But Curling is different, there’s a camaraderie to help each other.

Tahli, Dean and John hit it off right away and the pair were taken in as family.

“I feel like Aussies and Canadians are kindred spirits,” John Morris said.

“We don’t take life too seriously, we have a lot of fun together. They are such good friends and such wonderful people.”

As their partnership took off, so did their level of play.

Tahli and Dean won silver in a strong international field at the 2019 New Zealand Winter Games and another silver at the Sutherland mixed doubles curling classic in Saskatoon, Canada.

“He (John) just fills you with so much confidence,” Tahli said.

“He’s so experienced and at such big events it’s nice to have someone who’s been through that and knows how to handle it,” Tahli said.

Unfortunately the pandemic had a major impact on the scheduling of international curling in 2020-21, with many events cancelled.

The pair made the decision to base themselves in Canada for most of 2021 to get the training and coaching they desperately wanted.

It was in December 2021 when Tahli and Dean made more history, going undefeated at a mixed doubles Olympic qualifying event in the Netherlands with John Morris by their side to earn Australia’s first ever Olympic quota in Curling.

A month later John Morris was selected as an athlete for Canada’s Beijing 2022 mixed doubles curling team. With his country calling, it meant he had to relinquish his role coaching Tahli and Dean. Pete Manasantivongs took over as coach for the Beijing 2022 Games.

John Morris’ message for the Tahli and Dean just a week out from Beijing 2022 showed his class.

"He gave us this really nice card and he finished off the note saying, 'friend first, coach second,’" Dean said.

With the round robin nature of Olympic mixed doubles curling, Dean and Tahli were on a collision course to compete against John Morris.

"That will probably be my toughest game mentally," Morris said before the match.

"I like to play with a bit of an edge and I want to crush my opponent. It's hard to want to crush them because they're so nice."

Their matchup came with a long wait, as it was the ninth and final round robin game for both countries.

Up to that point the Aussies had lost seven of their eight Olympic matches, only narrowly defeated in most, and had picked up their first win just hours prior on a day they were almost forced to fly out of Beijing.

Tahli and Dean’s form in their earlier win over Switzerland carried over to start, as they raced to a 7-0 lead over Rachel Homan and John Morris.

Canada managed a recovery to complete the eighth end tied on eight points each. Australia got the better of them in the extra end to secure a 10-8 victory.

Forge, like Tahli and Dean, is excited for what this means for Australian curling in the years to come. She believes John will potentially resume coaching the pair.

"I've spoken with them (Tahli and Dean) since they've been back and not only are they shooting to make the Olympics in 2026, they're shooting to make the podium,” Forge said.

“I’m sure there is a future with the three of them as well. The goal was to get Tahli and Dean to the Olympics and John was instrumental with that.

“He is really a strength behind our players. Dean and Tahli walkaway with a win against their coach. Obviously he taught them very well.”

Jeff Dickinson-Fox