MILAN — Curler Korey Dropkin had been hoping to mount an Olympic victory podium since before he started grade school. On Tuesday, he finally made the final steps of that climb alongside mixed doubles partner Cory Thiesse, but the medal he got wasn't the color he'd dreamed it would be with the Swedish brother-sister combo of Isabella and Rasmus Wrana winning a dramatic final, 6-5, on the final shot at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy .

The silver was the first in curling for the U.S. and just the third medal ever. It was also the Americans' first medal in mixed doubles, which joined the Olympic calendar in 2018.

"It's bittersweet. But Cory said earlier that, if we were to start this year off and tell each other we were going to be Olympic silver medalists, we'd be ecstatic," Dropkin said.

"It's been an amazing week. (There have been) plenty of times when we've got emotional because it's been so much. It just means the world to be here."

Neither team led by more than a point in the back-and-forth competition, which came down to the final two stones. With the U.S. leading 5-4 in the last end, Thiesse went for a promotion take-out with the Americans' last stone. She achieved her take-out goal and put her stone into scoring position, but floated it a bit too far, leaving it exposed.

Isabella Wrana's clearing stone on the hammer shot knocked the U.S. stone away, giving Sweden two points for the win.

The U.S. advanced to the final on a similar shot by Thiesse in a 9-8 semifinal win over Italy on Monday. By getting the U.S. to the final, Thiesse was assured of being the first American woman to medal in curling.

"It's been a long time coming," she said. "Being on the podium is huge and a big day for women's curling in the United States. I'm really proud and honored to be standing up there and to use this to move women's curling in the U.S. forward and do what we can as players and as mentors to hopefully see more women from the United States up on that podium some day."

Reaching the medal stand didn't seem likely for either Thiesse or Dropkin until the two paired up a few months after missing the U.S. team for the 2022 Games. Thiesse's partner at the time was John Shuster, a five-time Olympian and gold medalist in 2018, the last time an American medaled in curling.

The results came quickly for Dropkin and Thiesse, former college classmate who trained at the same curling club in Duluth, Minn. They reached the semifinal of their first tour event, lost in the final of the second, then won the national title, qualifying for the world championships, which they also won, becoming the first Americans to do so.

Aside from Team Shuster's win eight years ago, the only other time an American curler reached the Olympic medal podium before Tuesday was 2006, when a squad skipped by Peter Fenson collected the bronze in Torino, Italy.

"It's a full-circle moment, 20 years later to be in Italy, where those '06 moments were, to be able to represent the United States and to be playing for medals," Dropkin said.

"Obviously, would have loved to come home with a gold medal. But Sweden earned that and we earned the silver medal."

After waiting since childhood for to climb that medal stand, Dropkin hardly seemed disappointed at having to stop one step from the top.

"It's a dream come true," he said.

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