Steve Emt had never thrown a curling rock when a stranger on Cape Cod asked if he'd ever tried the sport.

He was 42, had been in a wheelchair since a car accident at age 25, and was on a weekend trip to decompress when the conversation happened. The stranger mentioned they trained with the U.S. Paralympic curling team. Within three months of picking up a broom for the first time, Emt had earned a spot on Team USA.

Between the accident and that Cape Cod weekend, Emt had been doing what determined people do: rebuilding. He earned a degree in psychology. He became a middle school math teacher and a high school basketball coach. He'd played at West Point and walked on to Jim Calhoun's UConn team, so sport was never far from who he was. But nothing had put him back on a world stage the way that random conversation in Cape Cod would. He competed at PyeongChang in 2018, Beijing in 2022, and now Milan in 2026, making him the first U.S. wheelchair curler to compete at three Paralympic Games.

Laura Dwyer's entry into this sport was a flyer on a wall.

In 2012, at work, a branch broke off a tree near where she was standing. It weighed 1,000 pounds. It left her with 26 broken ribs, three broken toes, and a spinal cord injury that paralyzed her from the waist down. She had been a landscaper for 18 years. She had two young boys at home and had to figure out how to live an entirely different life.

Seven years later, she spotted a flyer for an adaptive curling clinic in Wauwatosa. She showed up with zero expectations. The game reminded her of shuffleboard. The U.S. national coach was there, along with several Paralympic curlers, and they saw something in Dwyer worth pursuing. By 2023 she was competing for Team USA at the Wheelchair Curling World Championships. She returned in 2024 and 2025.

Her son Crandon, now 19, is a U.S. Marine. Her son Thomas, 18, plays football at South Dakota State. Her husband Chris was at home in Oconomowoc when she left for Italy. The staff at Froedtert Hospital, who have supported her rehabilitation since the accident, held a sendoff before she went.

How They Got to Milan Together

Dwyer and Emt became a mixed doubles pair in 2024. They won the U.S. national wheelchair mixed doubles championship in 2025 and posted a ninth-place finish at the World Championships in Scotland, their main international benchmark before qualification.

The U.S. Paralympic Curling Trials were held in Sioux Falls last November. They beat Team Ricker/Samsa 9-1 in the opening match and 9-7 in the deciding game, winning the best-of-three final and locking the United States into the first-ever Paralympic bracket.

Emt had moved from Connecticut to DeForest, Wisconsin in 2023 specifically to shorten the commute. The drive to his nearest club from his old home had been two hours each way. Now he and Dwyer train together three days a week at the Madison Curling Club, a short drive from home. Their communication style on the ice is direct by design. This is a two-person format where every call, every miss lands on one of the two of them, with no teammates to hand anything off to. Dwyer is clear on how she prefers it: "I would rather a direct honesty about what's going on. Don't beat around the bush." Emt describes what they share: "We're cut from the same cloth. We are very competitive people. We care about each other." Their U.S. teammates have joked the two of them could use some couples therapy.

The confidence is intentional. Ninth place at the Worlds is the international résumé. But listen to what Emt said going into this: "We are expected to win a medal. We're elite athletes. We understand that."

Why This Event Is Brand New at the Paralympics

Wheelchair curling mixed doubles has never been on the Paralympic schedule before this week. The World Curling Federation has run the format at the world championship level for years, but the pathway to Paralympic competition didn't open until 2026. Eight nations qualified: Italy as host, South Korea, Japan, China, Latvia, Great Britain, Estonia, and the United States. Japan won the 2025 Worlds 11-2; South Korea was the 2024 champion. Both have dominated the event for years.

What makes the format different to watch: two players, six rocks, no one to share the decision-making with. Every shot and every call is entirely on Emt and Dwyer. That's more pressure per end than the four-player version, and it shows in how each stone lands.

The wheelchair curling guide covers both formats if you're watching for the first time.

"No matter what happens," Dwyer said, "we'll go down in history as the first mixed doubles team duo to represent the United States. That alone is an honor in itself."

Round robin play runs through March 9. The gold and bronze medal matches are scheduled for March 11, all on Peacock.