History

The sport of Curling is over 500 years old and the earliest written record of curling - referencing groups of people sliding stones on frozen ponds and lochs in competition - are found at Scotland’s Paisley Abbey dating back to 1541.

Curling for men was played at the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924 at Chamonix, France.  However, Curling did not appear again as an official Olympic sport until the Nagano 1998 Winter Games with both men’s and women’s tournaments.


Technical

At the Olympic Winter Games, Curling consists of two events: a women’s tournament and a men’s tournament.  Each tournament starts with 10 curling teams but only two teams play against each other at a time.  The game is played on ice and each of the two teams take turns pushing 19.1-kilogramme stones towards a series of concentric rings or circles.  The object is to get the stones as close to the centre of the rings as possible.

One game consists of 10 “ends”.  During each end, each four-person team “throws” (slides along the ice) eight stones - two stones per person and 16 altogether.  Team members sweep the ice clean in front of each stone to control the stone’s direction, known as its “curl,” and the stone’s speed.  The team with the most points - more stones closer to the centre of the rings - at the conclusion of 10 ends is the winner.


Major Players

Canada has always proved very strong in the sport of curling.   They are the reigning Olympic champions in Men’s Curling after their emphatic victory over the USA in the 2006 Olympic final in Turin while the Canadian women’s team finished third behind gold medallist Sweden and silver medallist Switzerland.

Great Britain are also considered a strong curling nation following the dramatic victory of Rhona Martin who skippered the British women’s team at the Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympics.

19 year old Skip Eve Muirhead will hope to replicate Martin’s success in Women’s Curling while David Murdoch leads a strong British side that narrowly lost the 2006 Olympic bronze medal match to the USA.


Bluffers’ Guide

The Skip is the player who determines the strategy, reads the ice, and plays and directs play for the team.  Generally the skip delivers the last pair of stones for his/her team in each end.


Useless Information

The playing area is called the sheet.