United States's skip John Shuster, center, slides on the ice with teammates. Photo / AP
United States's skip John Shuster, center, slides on the ice with teammates. Photo / AP
Curling, the sport we love to make fun of every time the Winter Olympics comes around has a history richer and deeper than you could possibly imagine.
Once every four years, this strange combination of lawn bowls, ice skating and house work pops up on our screen, and we laugh:"is this whackiest sport on the planet? Why is it always on our screens when we go to watch the winter games? Who watches it?"
Well the Canadians do: 80% of the world's 1.5m curlers are in Canada, where it's the second most popular winter sport after ice hockey. The other 20% are mostly in the colder parts of the United States, Scotland, Norway and Sweden.
So, not exactly a universal sport. But then neither is rugby - and here's the thing: curling is older than rugby, way, way older.
It's first recorded in Scotland in 1540 and one of the history of art's most famous paintings, "Winter Landscape with Skaters and Bird Trap", painted by Flemish master Pieter Breughel the Elder in 1565 appears to show curlers.
Curlers on the ice in Pieter Breughel the Elder's 1565 masterpiece "Winter Landscape with Skaters and Birds Trap".
One of the keenest curlers of the late 18th century was Scottish poet Robert Burns, who opens one poem with the words: "The sun has clos'd the winter day/ The Curlers quat their roaring play".
Scotland also has this rare distinction: all Olympic curling stones come from Ailsa Crag, a 220-acre, uninhabited bird sanctuary just off the Scottish coast - a good source of microgranite, a strong and dense volcanic residue that slides well and survives decades worth of collisons.
How the stone curls on the ice - which, by the way needs to be -4.5C for competition - still baffles physicists. A curling stone will curve in the direction that it spins, which is an oddity. If you spin a glass across a table (try this one carefully at home) it curves in the opposite direction.
There have been several competing theories over the years, including one that explains the moving stone tips forward, creating pressure on the ice, which causes the ice to melt, reducing the friction at the front of the stone, so the rotation from the back of the stone causes the curling path.
Competitors may not know how it happens, but they know what they need to do. For the unitiated, curling involves two teams of four players who take turns sliding the polished stones towards a circular target and points are scored for the stones that end up closest to the centre.
The technique comes from the "curler" who releases the stone, inducing it to turn slowly as it slides, while two "sweepers" use brooms to push the ice in front of the stone, heating the ice slightly so the stone moves further and straighter.
Curling has featured in popular culture as well as high art. "Boy Meets Curl" is the 12th episode of The Simpsons' 21st season, when Homer and Marge go to the 2010 Winter Olympics in the US team.
Mr T, known best for the 1980s television series "The A Team", is a great fan of curling.
I like curling, it’s less wear and tear on the body. I wrestled, boxed, and studied martial arts. I have nothing else to prove. Therefore I choose curling. #curlingiscoolfool
If you think that New Zealand has never taken an interest in curling, think again.
New Zealand was the first country from the southern hemisphere to enter the Winter Olympics as a curling competitor at the 2006 Turin games. The team didn't win a single game, coming last.
That could change. Curling has a long history in the south of New Zealand where it is known as "the roaring game" - Scotland being the other country which calls it that.
Yesterday, New Zealand Curling announced that a high performance squad would be created to target the 2022 Winter Games. National coach Peter de Boer has put out a call to curlers who want to put in the hard work towards getting there.
"I am ready to help those athletes most motivated as much as I possibly can, so consider your own motivations to improve, and then let me know if you want to be part of the squad," he said. You can contact him at national.coach@curling.org.nz.
So, now you know. Maybe by then we won't be laughing but cheering.
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