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They don’t speak the language, they don’t know much about the culture and they’ve only visited the country three times.

But Jason Gunnlaugson, Justin Richter and Tyler Forrest are nonetheless the newest — and perhaps unlikeliest — national champions in Russia after capturing that country’s ‘Russian Brier’ over the weekend.

The three Manitoba natives won the Russian national curling championship on Sunday in the Russian city of Tver, outlasting a field of 15 other teams to claim the national title and the right to represent Russia at the European Curling Championships in Champerny, Switzerland, Dec. 3-11.

While curlers in Manitoba grow up dreaming of winning the Canadian Brier, not the Russian one, Gunnlaugson and company were thrilled nonetheless. “I’m just happy I won a national championship, man,” Gunnlaugson said Tuesday night.

And that’s not all they won, either. In addition to the title of Russian champions, the three Manitoba curlers will also soon be able to call themselves ‘Russians,’ as one of the perks for them in winning in Tver over the weekend was that the Russian government has pledged to quickly bestow citizenship on the Manitobans in time for them to compete for Russia at the ECC.

The Manitobans would not be able to compete under the Russian flag in Champerny unless they first become Russian citizens. The same citizenship requirement is in place at the 2011 Men’s World Curling Championship, which will be held in Regina in April.

But for all that they won over the weekend, Gunnlaugson said Tuesday night that it was what the three Manitobans stood to lose that was foremost on their minds. “It was a very stressful weekend,” Gunnlaugson said. “It was unlike anything I’ve ever curled for, basically knowing your job was on the line and that we’d have to win the whole event to make it happen.

“Usually you’re playing for a few things, but your job is never one of them. And we really had to work through all that pressure and thankfully it paid off when we needed it.”

The three Manitobans — who previously had modest success as a Winnipeg-based team and were one of eight teams that competed at the 2009 Canadian Curling Trials — were recruited by the Russian Curling Federation last spring to curl in Russia and help the country build a national men’s team in the lead-up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where the Russian men will ice an Olympic men’s team for the first time ever as the host nation.

The Manitobans are being paid to curl in Russia, but their continued employment was dependent upon them winning the national championship over the weekend. And the pressure isn’t off yet. “Now, we’ll have to perform all over again at the Euros (in Switzerland),” Gunnlaugson said.

Gunnlaugson’s Russian team needs to finish in the Top 8 at the European championships next month to earn entry into the men’s worlds. Should that happen, it would create the surreal spectacle of three Manitobans curling in Saskatchewan for a world title — under the flag of Russia.

“I think it could be one of the most exciting things I ever get to be involved in,” Gunnlaugson said. “If we could end up there, it would definitely be an exciting thing for curling. And if people want to come out and cheer for us, great. And if they want to come out and cheer against us, even better.”

The Gunnlaugson team — which is comprised of the Manitobans and two Russians who sub in and out for one another — went 5-2 in the round-robin in Tver and then won both playoff games, including the 7-1 final over a team from Chelyabinsk. “I’d never heard of them before,” said Gunnlaugson, who could not recall the skip’s name.

While the setting in Tver was unfamiliar, the Manitobans had no trouble adjusting to the ice conditions. The Russian Curling Federation flew Gimli icemaker Hans Wuthrich into Tver to make the ice for their national championship.

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Wuthrich has made ice at Manitoba and Canadian curling championships and was also the icemaker at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Wuthrich is hoping to make the ice again at the 2014 Games in Sochi and so it only makes sense that the Russians — as part of their effort to build a competent men’s curling program in the lead-up to those Games — familiarize their teams to the ice conditions they can expect in Sochi.

It also didn’t hurt that the Gunnlaugson team is being coached by Wuthrich’s wife, Patti, herself a multiple Manitoba curling champion. “It was a tough haul for them mentally,” Wuthrich said Tuesday night. “There was a little bit of a struggle early in the event, but when it came down to the crunch they got it done.”

Gunnlaugson said he was the one who was struggling. “Fortunately, the guys dragged me through the first part of the week,” he said. “And then at the end, they all laughed and said, ‘Thanks for showing up on the last day, Gunner.'”

The Gunnlaugson team arrived home in Winnipeg Tuesday night — they are based out of Gimli this winter — and will curl this weekend at a World Curling Tour event in Swan River and then next weekend at a WCT event in Stonewall before heading back to Europe to begin preparations for the Europeans.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca