6'0"
38
Duluth, MN
Lake Superior College
Chris Plys grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, spending his youth playing rugby and enjoying snow sports like snowboarding, until he picked up curling at age 11 at his dad's suggestion. Plys became a Minnesota state high school champion in curling and in 2008 would skip the first American team to a world junior championships in men’s curling in 24 years.
At age 22, Plys was selected as an alternate for the Winter Olympic Games Vancouver 2010 and made his Olympic debut when he replaced John Shuster as skip in Team USA's 4-3 round-robin win over France. Plys would not return to the Olympics until twelve years later, as the vice-skip on Shuster's team, the defending Olympic champions, and in mixed doubles with Vicky Persinger. Plys would finish eighth in mixed doubles and fourth in men’s team competition.
Plys is the oldest of five children and took over his family’s food brokerage business in 2011. A year later, his dad, Patrick, died at age 48 after a seventeen-year battle with brain cancer. Patrick used the phrase “I Chose Joy” near the end of his fight with cancer, and since his death, his mom, Laura, started a charity in his memory called Project Joy that helps to prevent childhood hunger. Plys has a few tattoos on his body dedicated to his father, including “I Choose Joy” on his forearm in large cursive and a re-creation of a photograph of his father teaching him to ride a bike.
February 6, 2025, marked the official one-year-out date from the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, and Team USA will know its first two athletes that will have the "hammer” advantage on qualifying for those games in a few short days. As of late...
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John Shuster can count on one hand how many Olympic Games he’s been to. But that will have to change if he qualifies for the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. The five-time Olympian would tie the record for most Winter Olympics attended by a U....
February 6, 2025, marked the official one-year-out date from the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games, and Team USA will know its first two athletes that will have the "hammer” advantage on qualifying for those games in a few short days. As of late...
Top notch performances by Team USA athletes at Olympic venues throughout the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024 provided further proof that the legacy of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018 is alive and thriving. The U.S. Youth Olympic men's...
It’s not every day that teenage curlers Ella Wendling and Benji Paral get to compete on the same sheets that the U.S. men’s curling team, nicknamed “The Rejects,” made famous during the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.That’s why they’re not takin...
The 16-year-old from Minnesota is on a team with her cousin for the competition in Gangwon, South Korea.
