Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer beat China. No other team in the mixed doubles wheelchair curling field at the 2026 Winter Paralympics managed that.

The Americans finished fourth.

Emt, 56, and Dwyer arrived in Cortina as the first U.S. mixed doubles pair in Paralympic history, representing a country that hadn't reached the wheelchair curling medal round in over a decade. Mixed doubles wheelchair curling itself was new to the Paralympic program, making its debut at these Games. First Americans in the discipline, first time the discipline had ever appeared at a Paralympics. Emt had found the sport at 42, recruited by a wheelchair curling coach who spotted him pushing uphill on Cape Cod and told him he could become a Paralympian. Dwyer came to it from a flyer, and the two qualified through the U.S. selection process as a pair, arriving in Italy with no history in the event to draw from and no expectations set by anyone who had come before them.

Through the round-robin, they won three consecutive matches. One of those wins came against China, the team that went on to claim gold. No one else in the field beat China.

The Bronze Final

The medal round put Emt and Dwyer against Latvia's Irēna Rozhkova and Markuss Lasmans, the 2023 wheelchair curling mixed doubles world champions. The Latvians had the kind of competitive experience the Americans were still putting together. They were not a team that came to Cortina uncertain about who they were.

The match stayed close throughout. The Americans worked into the lead as the match went on. Latvia tied it in the late ends. It went to extra ends, one additional round to settle it.

Latvia won 11-10. The margin was a single shot in a single extra end. For Latvia, the bronze medal was the country's first Winter Paralympic medal. For Emt and Dwyer, it was fourth place in their first Games and the first time the event had ever been contested.

No medal. The only result against China in the tournament.

What Colacchio Would Have Said

Steve Emt has answered hard questions for most of his adult life. A former West Point cadet and University of Connecticut basketball walk-on, he was paralyzed at 25 and built a life around not slowing down because of it. He has been doing this for over 30 years. He answers the questions.

When someone asked him after the Games what Tony Colacchio would have said about all of it, Emt broke down in tears. That was the only question that did that.

Colacchio was a wheelchair curling coach. He saw Emt on Cape Cod one afternoon, pushing uphill on his own, and approached him with a specific proposition: I can make you a Paralympian in a year. Not "you might consider curling." Not a pamphlet or a referral. He named what he saw and offered to prove it. Emt took him up on it, and they worked together for years. Colacchio died before the 2026 Games and never got to watch the team he helped build walk out onto the Cortina ice.

The questions about the loss, about extra ends, about Latvia's winning shot, Emt handled those. The Colacchio question reached something else.

When Emt speaks to students now, he tells them one thing: be a Tony. Not "pay it forward" as an abstraction. Not "mentor someone" as a professional obligation. Be a Tony. Find a person who hasn't been found yet and tell them what you see in plain terms. Colacchio did that on a hill, in passing, to a stranger. Fourteen years later, that stranger was throwing in the bronze medal game at the Paralympic Games.

Back for 2030

Before leaving Cortina, both Emt and Dwyer confirmed they plan to compete at the 2030 Winter Paralympics in the French Alps. Dwyer: "I'm in." Emt: "Hell yes."

The U.S. wheelchair curling mixed doubles program has one Games in the record books now. A fourth-place finish. Three round-robin wins. The only result against China in the tournament. Both athletes who built the program are coming back.

Both Emt and Dwyer are signed up for 2030. They have four years to build toward the French Alps.