Olympic curling has officially been changed… for good.
In a featurette posted by NBC Sports on YouTube, Wicked: For Good‘s Cynthia Erivo showed just how much of an advantage her broom can lend to Team USA’s curling team. In the promo for the upcoming Winter Olympics, American curlers Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin were seen struggling to effectively use their curling brooms in a faux practice session — and viewers quickly saw just how much help they needed.
The granite curling stones were just not responding to their sweeps.
Both athletes looked crestfallen.
“That wasn’t even close,” Thiesse scolded.
“It’s this broom,” Dropkin replied.
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Enter Erivo, donning a jaw-dropping all-black winter coat — holding her character Elphaba’s broom from Wicked, of course.
“Maybe try this,” the Emmy-, Grammy-, and Tony-winning actress said, offering up her broom to the team.
As it turned out, the crossover event was exactly what Thiesse and Dropkin needed!
Gaining possession of Elphaba’s broom, the duo tried again. As the iconic “For Good” song played in the background, the team — also known as a rink — finally looked ready to compete in the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
All it took was a little help from a wicked witch. Who knew?
Watch Cynthia Erivo help the Team USA curling team here.
For anybody who has heard about curling but has no idea what it is, don’t worry — we’re here to help.
What is curling?
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area segmented into an inner circle surrounded by three rings The goal is to get your team’s stones closer to the center of the target than the opposing team’s stones. It’s the same basic concept as shuffleboard, except brooms are used to slow down and manipulate the stones as they head for the target.
How long has curling been part of the Olympics?
Curling has been a permanent Olympic sport since the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, and includes events in three divisions: men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles.
The United States won its only gold medal in curling at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, when the men’s team defeated Sweden 10-7. The men’s team also won a bronze medal in 2006 in Torino.
Team USA starts its gold medal aspirations on February 5 against Norway in mixed doubles action — a day before the 2026 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony is broadcast on NBC and Peacock.