Shuster's first appearance at the Games came in Italy at Turin 2006, where he played as a lead for Pete Fenson's bronze medal-winning team.

He took over as skip for Vancouver 2010, and guided the United States to a first ever Olympic gold medal in curling at Pyeongchang 2018.

Shuster's team, completed by Plys, Matt Hamilton, John Landsteiner and Colin Hufman, were denied another medal at Beijing 2022 with a defeat to Canada in the match for bronze.

Plys told KBJR 6 that the team aims to compete in the upcoming four-year cycle with a view to representing the US at Milan Cortina 2026.

"There's definitely a couple other good teams, you know one with Korey Dropkin here in Duluth that are really pushing hard," Plys said.

"We’re all getting older, so we’re going to have to just keep the foot on the gas, and yeah we have our work cut out for us but it'll be fun."

Plys last month posted on Twitter: "There aren't four other guys I'd rather go into my last Olympic cycle with", to which Shuster replied: "I guess this means we're still playing, huh?"

Curling matches at Milan Cortina 2026 are due to be played at the Olympic Ice Stadium in the Cortina d'Ampezzo cluster of venues.

The bid incorporating Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo staved off a challenge from Stockholm and Åre in 2019 to be awarded hosting rights for the Games.

Concerns have been raised by some athletes over the distance between venues, with the 22,000 square kilometres covered set to make it the most geographically widespread Olympics in history.

The Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place from February 6 to 22, with the Paralympic Games set to follow from March 6 to 15.