Winter sports are already a thing for some, but curling, this American version of curling, i.e. this boccia game with brooms on ice, is something special again. Or to put it another way and better for us: There is hardly any other winter sport that is as vilified, underestimated and despised as curling. And that’s completely for no reason.
Because instead of the lame comparisons above, you could also make a chess comparison, because in probably no other sport that takes place on ice requires as much thought as curling. Tactics and combination thinking, foresight and prevention, those would be the key words. And yet curling brings with it even more requirements: patience, sensitivity and Sense of mathematics. Also balance – Curlers don’t wear ice skates, but rather special footwear. A curling shoe has two different soles – a smooth one for sliding, a rough one for pushing off. How cool is that?
But that wouldn’t be all. Athleticism is also necessary – the push-off movement in particular requires precision and body control, while wiping requires a lot of strength and endurance.
But the best thing is that curling is a special kind of team sport. The team has to constantly re-coordinate itself – communication is the be-all and end-all here. Similar to other TV sports, the subtleties of which are not immediately apparent (darts, snooker, cricket or baseball could also be included), you may have to commit to watching for a while in order to understand the game and then be able to enjoy it even more.
Self is the skip
So much for the rough introduction. In Cortina d’Ampezzo the Olympic competition started early; In fact, curling, like ice hockey, is on the program every single day. It has begun with the mixed competitionwhich also has the special feature of only having 2 players per team: one woman, one man. Here no one is just a wiper, here the “skip” (the captain) does the cleaning himself.
Germany, after all 2024 European champions For the men, unfortunately there is no team in the mixed doubles, the qualification was missed. The favorites come from Great Britain and Italy – the British clearly dominated the preliminary round and also beat Italy 9:6. The hosts are weakening a little, they suffered three defeats (Great Britain only one), but they qualified for the semi-finals just like the island’s team.
Switzerland, on the other hand, was eliminated, and in tears. South Korea, which was disadvantaged by the referees at the start – they simply miscalculated – will also have to watch from now on. In addition to Great Britain and Italy, Sweden and the USA made it to the semi-finals. The final takes place on Tuesday from 6 p.m.
Gender segregation
On Wednesday the genders will be separated again, men and women will play their preliminary rounds again. The finals actually only take place at the end of the games – on Saturday, February 21st, the men curl and on Sunday, February 22nd, the women curl. Their games also run without German participation.
In contrast to many other trend sports, curling is a very self-exploitative affair; It’s best to have a “day job” in addition to sport – these are second or third line athletes Bohemians of these times. At the European Championships in Finland in 2024, the winners received the “symbolic” prize of 9 cheeses (no joke). The German Sporthilfe has at least offered more for the Olympic gold – there is talk of 30,000 euros.
But you have to get gold first. So far, the Germans have always come away empty-handed when it comes to curling at the Olympics.