The opening ceremony for the Pyeongchang Olympics is still a day away, but the games already are underway.
On Wednesday night, in the Olympics' first-ever match of mixed doubles curling, a brother-sister team from Madison, Wisconsin, beat a Russian husband-and-wife team competing in neutral uniforms with no national insignia.
Siblings Matt and Becca Hamilton beat Anastasia Bryzgalova and Aleksandr Krushelnitckii, competing as Olympic Athletes from Russia, 9-3.
The Americans then lost their next match, falling 6-4 to a Canadian team of Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris. Canada used a three-point fifth end to pull away in a tight contest.
Mixed doubles is making its debut in the Pyeongchang Games. It is a round-robin tournament played by teams of two -- one man and one woman. It's much faster-paced than traditional curling. There are eight ends per game, and each team throws five stones per end -- unlike regular curling, in which teams throw eight stones and play 10 ends.
The Hamiltons started playing together about three years ago, when it was announced that mixed doubles would be coming to the Olympics. Matt, 28, and Becca, 27, decided they wanted to compete together.
When mixed doubles wraps up on Tuesday, the siblings will start curling separately in the men's and women's tournaments on Wednesday.
Information from The Associated Press contributed to this report.