Jan Betker

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Olympic medalist
Jan Betker
Medal record
Women's Curling
Gold	1998 Nagano	Team

Jan Betker (born July 19, 1960 in Regina, Saskatchewan) is a Canadian curler. Betker, who played the third position on the team of the late Sandra Schmirler, has taken over the position of skip created by Schmirler’s death.

As part of the Schmirler team Betker won 3 Canadian curling championships in 1993, 1994, and 1997. As well the team also won 3 world championships in 1993, 1994, and 1997. In 1998 the team won the Gold Medal for curling at the Olympic Games. Betker also won a Canadian Mixed Curling Championship in 1984 as the lead for Randy Woytowich.

At first Betker refused to skip the team following the death of her long time skip Schmirler. However, in 2003 Betker took over as skip and took her team to the Canadian Championship. The team finished fourth overall.

In 2005, at the Canada Cup of Curling, Betker and her team placed second. However this showing was still enough to win them a spot at the 2005 Canadian Olympic Trials in Halifax as the winner of the event, Shannon Kleibrink already had won an Olympic Trial berth. The winner of that event will go on to represent Canada at the 2006 Olympics. Betker will lead her team to try and emulate the success they had at that event in Brandon, Manitoba in 1997.

Her team mates are:

• Nancy Inglis- Third,
• Lana Vey- Second,
• Marcia Gudereit- Lead*,

*also curled with Betker on team Schmirler