VANCOUVER, BC - FEBRUARY 16: The United States team wait for a result during the women's curling round robin game between Japan and the United States on day 5 of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics at Vancouver Olympic Centre on February 16, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
Posted: Feb 16, 8:18p ET | Updated: Feb 16, 11:50p ET
VANCOUVER (AP) -- This was hardly the kind of Olympic curling return Debbie McCormick had in mind.
The U.S. skip has been waiting eight years to make a special run with her close-knit group of girlfriends, so losing her first match to Japan on Tuesday was tough to swallow.
"I was definitely nervous," McCormick said of being back on the Olympic curling ice at long last. "But it wasn't a freaked-out, scared nervous."
The Japanese team certainly showed no signs of jitters.
Led by 25-year-old skip Moe Meguro , Japan scored three points in both the fifth and seventh ends to rally from a three-point deficit, beating the Americans 9-7 in a dramatic finish that brought out an official measurement.
The 36-year-old McCormick -- back for her third Winter Games after missing out on Turin four years ago -- threw her final stone with a chance to tie, and both teams wound up with one rock on the edge of the button. They were so close that an official measurement was done, and Japan's rock was a hair further into the innermost scoring circle. If the U.S. stone had won, the teams would have been even at 8 and played an extra end.
While this was a disappointing start for McCormick's rink, she was trying to keep it in perspective. It's only one game -- and there are eight more in round-robin play to determine the semifinalists. The U.S. plays Germany on Wednesday.
Meguro made sure her teammates didn't panic after falling behind to the Americans early in their Olympic opener.
"In the fifth end when we got three, it was a momentum shift," Meguro said of her team's two big ends. "When we were three down, we didn't panic. We played our game. The ice is curling nicely."
Japan scored one point in the ninth end to take the lead. McCormick insisted the two three-spots didn't affect the Americans mentally.
"It didn't get into our head or anything," she said. "We were set up really good in the last end to get two. We just didn't capitalize on certain things in the back of the house that got us in trouble."
The Americans jumped out to leads of 3-0 and 4-1 before letting Japan back in it with the three points in the fifth.
McCormick couldn't capitalize on her first shot and vice skip Allison Pottinger missed on her second throw, giving the Japanese more rocks in the house to work with and also a morale boost for the second half of the match.
McCormick's takeout for two in the sixth put her team back on top, then Meguro scored another three points for the Japanese in the seventh to take a 7-6 lead.
This is a game where one momentum shift can be all it takes for a team to swing its fortunes.
The other three women's games were just as exciting. Canada, which captured bronze in the last two Olympics, needed a clutch final throw by skip Cheryl Bernard to hold off two-time reigning silver medalist Switzerland.
Germany scored three in the 10th end in a 9-5 win over Russia and defending champion Sweden edged Denmark 6-5.
"That's going to be the case all week," Pottinger said. "We've got to regroup and come together tomorrow."
McCormick has said this very well might be her Olympic hurrah before she shifts her focus more to her personal life and her goal of starting a family this year.
Playing in Canada has extra meaning for natives McCormick and Wally Henry, her father and longtime coach. McCormick was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, moving to Wisconsin as a toddler when her father transferred for work. Henry, a two-time U.S. curling champion, retired in January 2008 as admissions director at Herzing College.
Henry was an assistant coach for his daughter's fourth-place team at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, where the Americans lost in the bronze-medal game. McCormick was on the fifth-place U.S. team at Nagano in 1998.
Both father and daughter have said they will wait until after the Olympics to reflect on their memorable time together. For now, it's about staying focused.
"We missed some key shots. We weren't executing as well, our rock placement wasn't as great," McCormick said. "We made some great shots but also missed quite a few. It was kind of a teeter-totter game."
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