Australia has won silver at the Pacific Curling Championships in Beijing, but also grasped a golden opportunity to qualify for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
 
The Australian team of Hugh Millikin, Ian Palangio, Sean Hall and Stephen Johns (and alternate Stephen Hewitt) went down in the final to host nation China by 2 points to 9.
 
But by making the final two of the competition, they earned a guaranteed place in the 2008 World Championships next April. And a strong performance at those world titles could deliver the team a place in the field for the Vancouver Games.
 
Just ten spots are available in the Olympic field, distributed according to the number of points nations gather at the three world championships of 2007, 2008 and 2009.
 
Australia collected 4.5 points at the 2007 world titles, and a strong performance at the 2008 titles should put them over the line for Vancouver.
 
The Aussie curlers would be well pleased with their performance at the pacific qualifying event.
 
After losing early round robin matches to China and Japan, but defeating Chinese Taipei, they bounced back to defeat arch-rival New Zealand 6-3 in their final preliminary round.
 
They faced the Kiwis again in the semi-final, this time in a best of three match encounter, securing the vital place in the final with a 6-5, 9-8 score line.
 
If they are successful in qualifying for Vancouver, it will be the first time an Australian team has been part of the Olympic curling competition.
 
Hugh Millikin, the Australian skip, recalls the matches of the Pacific championships
 
"We always struggle at the start of tournaments because preparation is a problem for us. It's difficult for us to adjust to the rocks and the ice and the conditions, and we are up against teams that have been playing constantly for four or five months.
 
We had three camps leading into these championships but that's nothing like what the opposition have done to prepare. So it's always a tough ask for us especially at the beginning
 
Losing to China didn't bother us too much but losing to Japan was a bit of a worry - we were down 1 and 2 then.
 
Then the game against Korea was really tough, but Ian (Palangio) played an unbelievably spectacular shot to put us one up and then they missed their last shot.
 
Once we had got past that we started to play a lot better and we beat New Zealand in the final round robin game to get into the finals.
 
In the first semi against New Zealand we played fantastically well, but Sean Becker, the New Zealand skip, saved them time and time again when we had 2 and 3 against them - just miracle shots - but we won it 6-5.
 
The second semi was also very close. We had them in trouble a lot but we were struggling with one set of rocks and again it was very close until they missed the last shot that would have made it one all."

As the first initiative into curling for the OWI and AIS programs, the success at the Pacific Championships has been very pleasing. OWI Chief Executive Geoff Lipshut commented: Hugh and his team are on track for a top 10 world championship finish for the second year in a row. I very pleased that we ave been able to assist the team achieve their goals. Our program goal for Curling was a berth at the 2008 World Championships and this has been achieved, congratulations to everyone in the squad and their coach Earl Morris.”