Curling (by Thomas Vogelsang)

Curling

For the persons among you who never saw curling before:

Curling is a sport played on ice with two teams of four players. The purpose of the game is to put your stones (made out of granite, weight about 20kg) closer to the center of the "house" (the circles drawn on the ice surface) than the other team. Two stones of each player are thrown alternating by both teams for a total of sixteen stones per "end". Each end the team whose stones are closest to the center of the house gets one point for each stone that is closer than the best of the opponent. After ten ends (game time about 2:30 hours) the team with the most points wins the game.

The stones do not move in a straight line. They are thrown with a turning motion and due to the friction with the ice they move along a curved path. The sweeping of the ice surface creates a thin water film which lowers the friction between stone and ice. This has two effects: the stone does not slow down as quickly and runs farther before it stops and the curved path becomes straighter. Therefore the place where the stone stops and its direction can be changed while it is running without touching it. This makes top level curling to a game of precision (centimeters over a distance of 40 meters) and physical endurance (for the sweeping). On a lower level curling is however a game that can be enjoyed by male and female from the young to the old.

Curling is of Scottish origin and widely popular in Canada. It has however grown internationally significantly in the last 10 years and is now played in more than thirty countries worldwide. This was recognized by the International Olympic Committee by accepting curling as a full medal sport at the Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, Salt Lake City, U.S.A. and Torino, Italy. The next Olympic curling event will be in Vancouver, Canada.

If you like to find more about curling on the web, the following links may help you

My Statistics

Thomas Vogelsang

My Clubs

Organizations

Championships

Olympic Winter Games 2010, Vancouver, Canada

You can send me e-mail at mail@thomas-vogelsang.net or return to my homepage.