To Curl Is Human; To Watch Is Divine

Ever since the top management of my company decided to be extravagant and installed flat screen TVs in the office last year, we have been bombarded with 24 hour financial headline news at work. As our CFO said, it is to show the visiting clients our dedication to our business by staying up-to-the-second updated with the industry. Funny since all the TVs in the office have been, understandably, muted, does it mean being able to read lips is also part of the professionalism in our business too? So far the crew have been well behaved and the channel stayed mainly in CNN but that might have more to do with the remote control is being under the Facility Manager's supervision. However, with the on-going Winter Olympics game the temptation is too much and thus we were treated with full week coverage of --- Curling (冰壺)



It was only three Olympics ago that curling had become an official competing event. Even for a sport crazed country like U.S. curling is not big a sport. The coverage we have this week probably could last us a decade and most of the folks in the office have never played the game before. However, all the real athletic events (such as ice dancing) will have to be saved for prime time TV, so in the office we will have the settle with curling. Fortunately curling is a relatively fast moving sport and rather easy to follow, if not to play. The goal is to place the curling stone (a.k.a. rock) closest to the circle at the end of the game. It is sort of like the combination of pétanque you see in European public gardens and air hockey kids used to play in amusement park.

The Vancouver game marks the first foray of China into curling. Just like almost all non-traditional Chinese sports, the Chinese women team outperforms their male counterpart by winning the bronze. The only match of the Chinese men I got to watch is the round robin match against host and defending world champion Canada. The Chinese team was blown away right off the bat and trailed Canada 0-4 in the first end. To give them some slacks this match is a dead rubber which means by then the Canadian has already confirmed advancing to semi-final (as the top seed) and the Chinese is eliminated regardless the result.



While the match is far from being competitive, it still good to get the (rare) chance watching the Chinese team in action. Comprised of 王奉春, 徐曉明, 劉銳 and 臧家亮, the entire team hailed from, unsurprisingly, Heilongjiang (黑龍江)


Chinese men curling team member 王奉春


Chinese men curling team (l. to r. 臧家亮, 徐曉明, 劉銳)

Particularly pleasing in the eyes is second thrower (二壘) 徐曉明. Some Chinese online news and forums have erroneously listed him as 徐小明, probably due to the English name Xu XiaoMing in his Olympics profile



In recent years Chinese national athletes are getting more and more star build-up to promote both the sport as well as personal endorsement. For an obscure sport like curling exposure would be limited around the world. In a city like Hong Kong where the temperature hardly ever dips below five degree Celsius, winter sport will be a hard sell to say the least (I must confess before moving to Boston I didn't even know there is such a thing called Winter Olympics). However, if you get bored with the posters of 陳一冰, 林丹, 田亮 or 王皓 one day you might want to check out 徐曉明


If 徐曉明 is to get star makeover he will really need to do something about his hair, which always looks like just getting off from the wrong side of the bed

If all the photos have wetted your appetite for some real action, the bad news is due to copyright you won't be able to find any clip of real Olympics competition in Youtube. Fortunately Vancouver Island News had done a segment on the Chinese Curling team just before the Olympics when the team had chosen Vancouver Island as their pre-Olympic tune-up destination. Stay with the clip, toward the end you will see 徐曉明 in motion, if not exactly in action