As a sport requiring stability, focus and calm, curling seems to
be suited for a more mature crowd. But in China, it's a group of
youngsters who have their eyes set on the 2010 Olympics.
At the 2007 Pacific Curling Championships, which concluded last
week in Beijing, both China's women's and men's teams took home
gold medals and have qualified for the 2008 World Championships in
Vernon, Canada next March.
It is the fourth time the women's team has qualified for the
worlds, but only the first time for the men's.
The Chinese men met Australia in the final and notched their
first-ever victory over their archrival, stamping their tickets to
the worlds.
"They played very well this time, and the results reflect their
normal training level," said Li Dongyan, the head official of
China's curling team. "We have learned much from the previous
failures against the Australian team and we finally made it a
victory."
The sport, in which players slide heavily polished granite
stones across ice towards the target - known as the "house" -
originated in 16th-century Scotland. It did not come to China until
1995, when a group of curling experts from Japan and Canada
provided training and equipment.
In a sport where experience is as important as anything, some of
the best curlers around the world tend to be some of the
eldest.
At last year's Turin Winter Olympics, for example, Scott Baird
of the US men's curling team became the oldest Winter Olympian in
history, aged 54 years and 282 days. In Canada, a country which
typically dominates the sport, the average age of curlers is 39.9
years.
But in China, where the sport is still trying to find a niche,
all hopes rest on a group of athletes no older than 26. Their
youth, some say, puts them at a disadvantage.
"When you are younger, you have the physical advantage for sure.
It's just training their mind to believe in themselves," said
Daniel Rafael, the Canadian coach of the Chinese national curling
team. "When I first met them in September, I noticed that they were
working as four individuals that are supposed to be a team. So, it
was just to get them working together."
Rafael, who has been involved in curling for 38 years, was
impressed with the talented Chinese players after working with the
team for only a month. He said he is developing strong minds in his
players, trying to get them ready to compete.
"When I first met the Chinese teams in Canada, I saw the two
teams were very, very talented. So I didn't think I was there to
teach them how to curl - they already knew how to curl," he said.
"What I was going to teach them is how to compete. That is very
important. They just lack the confidence that a curling team should
have."
"Curling is such a psychological game, a mental game, they just
had to have somebody to give them the confidence to play, to tell
them, 'Look, you are good'," the coach went on. "So I basically
tell them how to compete. I basically work with the mental part of
their game, because the physical part, they just have nothing to
do."
The Chinese national team was formed in 2000, but there are
still only about 100 curling players in the country and most of
them are young. The average age of the women's national team is
22.8 and for the men it is 23.4.
Li said a lack of venues made it impractical to recruit older
players.
"At present, we only have one professional venue for curling
throughout the country. But next year we may have two more in
Harbin and one more in Shanghai, but they will be smaller," Li
said. "The promotion of curling depends a lot on the venue, so if
there are not enough venues, it is hard to get more people
involved. All the people on the national team are among the first
group of people that learned curling in China."
Despite these challenges, the Chinese teams, which were sent to
train in Canada for several months a year, have made encouraging
progress in recent years.
At the 2005 Women's Curling World Championships, the Chinese
team finished seventh in its debut. At the 12-team event last year
they moved up to fifth.
"We hope to achieve better results for the women's team, and for
the men's side we expect them to finish in the top 10 in their
worlds debut," Li said.
The 2008 World Curling Championships will also be a
point-collection event to qualify for the 2010 Vancouver Winter
Olympic Games.
"We will strive for more points to be qualified for the
Olympics. The women's team has a big chance," Li added.
(China Daily November 29, 2007)