Curling originated in Scotland in the 14th century and is an ancient ice and snow sport. Compared with traditional sports such as skating and skiing, it entered China much later, but in just over a decade, it has achieved the progress from "Xiaobai" to world champion, which has attracted the attention of the world. Since then, curling has developed in China, allowing more people to appreciate the elegance and passion of this sport.
(1) The first curling club in China settled in Ditan
In 2001, the first curling rink opened to the public in China settled in the Zilongxiang Skating Hall. Pang Zhengzheng/Photo
To say which ice sport tests the intelligence of the participants the most, it must be indispensable to curling, which is known as "ice chess".
A curling pot made of special stone and weighing about 20 kilograms, got its name from the shape that resembles a kettle. After the pitcher throws the curling from home base, the teammates will work hard to wipe the ice with a brush in front of the curling, because the ice-wiping team member can't judge the curling route, so the pitcher needs to "shout" to direct the ice-wiping action. So the sport is also very ornamental.
Curling "entered the Olympic Games" later, and it became an official event at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, but its entry into China was 3 years earlier than "entering the Olympic Games".
In 1995, Harbin became the first city in mainland China to introduce curling, and this ancient sport from Scotland took root in ice.
At this time, the national fitness movement is in full swing in Beijing, and various sports are blooming in the folk, in addition to mainstream sports such as marathon, swimming, and three major balls, interesting and challenging sports such as flying marks, rock climbing, archery, and curling have also begun to emerge.
At the beginning of 2001, the first curling stadium opened to the public in China settled in the Zilongxiang Skating Hall of the Temple of Earth in Beijing, gathering a group of curling "enthusiasts", many of whom were authentic Beijingers. These curling enthusiasts were enthusiastic and formed the first curling club registered with the State General Administration of Sport in China, the Purple Dragon Xiang Curling Club. At that time, they did not expect that they would find a place in Harbin in the future.
(2) At the Tenth Winter Conference, Beijing curlers supported 5 teams
At the 10th Winter Games held in 2003, five curling teams were represented by Beijing athletes.
On January 5, 2003, the men's curling competition of the 10th National Winter Games was held in Harbin. During the game between the Jilin team and the White Mountain team, there was a burst of cheers with a Beijing accent from the audience. The five enthusiastic spectators were all Beijing boys, namely Li Chen, Wu Rong, He Lin, Jin Yang and Gao Yong, who had just defeated Jixi City on behalf of the Forestry Sports Association 15 minutes ago. Dramatically, at this moment, the two teams on the stage are the object of their cheering, and the other audiences are confused, which side is their "own person"?
It turned out that 25 of the 12 participating teams from all over the country were from Beijing, and they were from the same door beijing purple dragon xiang curling club. The five teams include: men's team - Jilin, Baishan, Forestry Sports Association, women's team - Jilin and Forestry Sports Association.
Why didn't the Beijing players put on the beijing team's jersey? The reason is that Beijing has not yet formed a representative team for the Winter Games that year. "Of course I would love to be able to go out for Beijing, so I can feel a support behind me." Watching his apprentices compete on behalf of other regions, Zhang Peng, the club coach standing on the sidelines, sighed that no matter what, being able to participate in the Winter Games is an affirmation of the apprentices, and they can also get exercise.
For example, Li Chen, who represented the Forestry Sports Association at the Tenth Winter Conference this time, was only 16 years old, and was a senior student in the Ninety-second Middle School of Chongwen District at that time. Zhang Peng praised him: "This child has not been in contact with curling for a long time, and now he can play so well, which proves that he has great potential, and maybe he can be seen in the Olympic Games in the future." ”
Beijing curlers supported the 5 representative teams of the Ten Winter Games. This also shows from one side that curling projects are gradually becoming a climate in Beijing.
January 7, 2003, Beijing Daily, 10th page
(3) Winning the World Championship set off the "curling fever" in Beijing
March 30, 2009, Beijing Daily, 16th edition
Although curling officially joined the Chinese sports circle, it was only a niche sport at first, after all, the competition was unknown in terms of the contribution of Chinese audiences to the ratings of sports competitions. It wasn't until 2008 that curling really entered the public eye.
At the 2008 World Women's Curling Championships held in Canada, the Chinese team won silver in a dark horse. The runner-up result of the World Championships has created the best result in the history of China's winter sports collective event. The outstanding performance of the Chinese team has attracted widespread attention from various media, and some media even use the word "miracle" to describe it.
The era of curling that belonged to China began. At the 2009 Curling World Championships, under the guidance of a Canadian coach, the Chinese team played by Wang Bingyu, Yue Qingshuang, Liu Yin and Zhou Yan defeated the Canadian team and won the gold medal. Then, at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Chinese women's team won the bronze medal. Since the formation of the national team in 2003, Chinese curling has become one of the world's top players in just 6 years, and the speed of progress is amazing.
The popularization of curling has also appeared in the major mainstream media and has gained a large number of "ice powder". At the beginning of 2010, our reporter visited the ice and snow activity venues in Beijing and found that curling was quite popular with sports enthusiasts, and many people went to "taste the early".
At that time, there were only 3 curling clubs in the country, and Beijing accounted for two, one was the Beijing Purple Dragon Xiang Curling Club, and the other was the Beijing Zhongtiao Curling Center in Huairou.
A speed skating straight, a circle and three lines on the ice, curling ready, a race can begin. Previously, the curling hall charged 400 yuan per hour, which discouraged many people. However, with the success of the Chinese team in the curling competition of the World Championships and the Winter Olympics, Li Xin, the coach of the Purple Dragon Xiang Curling Club, has received more phone calls, and there are often people who ask how to join the club. "Now on Tuesday and Thursday nights, the museum is full of curling and ice hockey, and we already have a bunch of 'hardcore curling fans.'" Li Xin said.
As the earliest amateur in China to contact curling projects, Li Xin told reporters that there are more than 1 million people in the world who play curling, of which about 700,000 are in Canada. Canada is a veritable curling powerhouse, so it is precious that Chinese girls can win the World Championship. With more and more curling enthusiasts in China, I believe that the competitiveness of the Chinese team will become stronger and stronger.
(4) Huairou middle school students were selected for the national team
February 16, 2016, Beijing Daily, 8th page
During the winter vacation of 2016, Han Yu, a junior high school student at Huairou No. 5 Middle School, was particularly busy. Not long ago, she was officially selected for the Curling Team of the Chinese Sports Delegation at the World Youth Olympics and went to Norway to compete. Only four players from all over the country were selected for the national team, and Han Yu was the only Beijing player who passed the rigorous selection.
Since the fifth grade of primary school, Han Yu has spent most of his spare time training curling. "When I first started curling, I felt that it was different from other sports, it was very elegant." But when she really started training as an amateur athlete, her memory of curling was non-stop wrestling, "the simplest sliding, after a week of learning, I couldn't skate well, the old wrestling, the fall hurt." ”
At that time, she did not think that she had any talent. Until 2016, he was selected by the coach of the national youth team and former national player Liu Yin, as the only non-professional athlete in the national youth team to participate in the second World Youth Winter Olympics held in Norway, and also won a valuable silver medal in the mixed doubles competition. Holding that medal, Han Yu felt for the first time that he could really do it!
In February 2017, General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected urban planning and construction and preparations for the Winter Olympics in Beijing. Han Yu, who is already a member of the Beijing women's curling team, had the honor of meeting the general secretary at the Capital Gymnasium. "The general secretary asked me what kind of project I was practicing, I said curling, he laughed and said, practicing curling requires a smart mind! Then he turned to his entourage and said that Chinese curling is now developing well and has done well. The words of the general secretary made Han Yu very encouraged.
"The future can be expected, and Han Yu's progress is obvious to all." After the 2021 Women's Curling World Championships, the World Curling Federation commented on the chinese curling "post-00s" young players on the official social platform. Senior Wang Bingyu praised her, "Although Han Yu has relatively shallow qualifications, he is very old and experienced in various emergency handling methods in the arena. ”
From his first exposure to curling at the age of 12 to his entry into the world championships at the age of 21, Han Yu has grown from a curling enthusiast to the captain of the Chinese curling national team. "My biggest goal is to participate in the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, hoping to wear the national team's shirt and win glory for the country at my doorstep." Han Yu said.
(5) Steel workers are transformed into ice makers for the Winter Olympics
Athletes chase after each other on the field, and they also need solid protection behind them. Of all the ice projects, curling has the most stringent requirements on the venue, not only strict restrictions on ambient temperature and humidity, but also quite complicated ice making processes.
In August 2018, the outdoor temperature was 32 °C, but the curling training hall of the Shougang Winter Olympic Training Center was only about a dozen degrees Celsius. Every day, Liu Boqiang, a 41-year-old ice maker, insists on staying on the ice rink for 12 hours, and there are few professional ice makers like him on curling tracks in the country. But ice making is not Liu Boqiang's own bank, he worked as a steel roller in Shougang's spark-studded factory building for more than a decade.
In 2016, the Organizing Committee of the 2016 Winter Olympics entered Shougang Park, and the original workshop was transformed into a winter Olympic training venue. When the news came that Shougang wanted to train a group of ice sweepers to serve the Winter Olympics, Liu Boqiang, who had transformed into an air conditioner maintenance worker, gladly signed up.
However, compared to figure skating and short track speed skating, curling is more difficult to make ice. The surface of the curling track has a small bulge called "freezing point", which can ensure that the curling slide smoothly on the ice. The process of making freezing points is called "dotting" (using distilled water to create uniform ice particles on ice), which is extremely difficult to technology. When the icemaker "dots", he has to make sure that any corner of the track can drop water droplets, and it takes 45 seconds to hit a point from beginning to end, slow or fast.
At that time, there were no more than 20 top ice makers in the world, and the top ice makers in charge of the curling hall of the Beijing Winter Olympics were JIMMY (Jimmy) from Canada.
Liu Boqiang has ambitions to be China's top ice maker, but the problem is that he has no chance to go to ice. Therefore, Liu Boqiang's indomitable energy came up when he was a worker, and while learning theoretical knowledge from Jimmy, he borrowed a pot and practiced on the road outside the venue at night to explore the "dotting" technique. He carried more than 40 pounds of dot pots, practiced diligently at night for nearly 2 months, and the "dot" route was about 150 kilometers, and finally found the feeling and formed a muscle memory.
Opportunities are always left to those who are prepared. One day, Jimmy temporarily arranged for Liu Boqiang to go to the ice to "dot", he actually succeeded once, and Jimmy, who was very surprised, decided on the spot to let Liu Boqiang officially go to ice!
Today, Liu Boqiang is fully committed to the intense Winter Olympics support work, "as an old Shougang person, we can also be regarded as following the pace of Shougang's transformation." My dream is to be a Chinese icemaker to ensure the smooth holding of the curling event at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. ”
(6) Youth curling ranks among the "first group" in China
On January 4, 2018, students at Guangqumen Middle School experienced curling. Deng Wei/Photo
In recent years, youth ice and snow sports in Beijing have developed rapidly, and the number of participants has increased geometrically.
In October 2020, the Beijing Junior U Series Short Track Speed Skating Championships and Curling Championships were held in Beijing. Su Jun, director of the Youth Sports Department of the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau, once lamented: "In 2017, the Sports Bureau organized amateur training for youth ice and snow projects for the first time, and only more than 70 people signed up. By this summer, there were 7,565 registered young athletes in the city, and 126 district-level sports teams. ”
Compared with the earlier ice hockey, figure skating and skiing, short track speed skating and curling were once the "backward" projects of Beijing youth ice and snow sports. But now is not the past, the deputy referee of this event Du Wei introduced that curling is relatively safer and easier to start, and it is increasingly favored by the campus. "Curling is a combination of intellect and body, and there are currently more than 30 schools in the city that carry out curling, and some schools use campus space to promote land curling." He said that Beijing youth curling jumped out of the traditional professional training system, and with the campus and market-oriented model, the current level of competition has been in the "first group" in China.
On January 13 this year, Li Sen, director of the Overall Planning Department of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, announced that the mainland's goal of "bringing 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports" has been achieved. Moreover, the popularity of ice and snow sports will not end with the end of the Winter Olympics, this is just the beginning. According to the national plan, by 2025, there will be about 5,000 characteristic education schools for ice and snow sports in the country, and ice and snow education will be included in the school physical education curriculum, which will continue to release the vitality of ice and snow and attract more ice and snow youngsters like Han Yu.
Skating, skiing, ice hockey, curling, for many years, Beijingers' enthusiasm for ice and snow sports has never faded, and the city of Beijing has continued to show extraordinary vitality.
The opening of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is imminent, and we will continue to write this Frozen with enthusiasm and expectations!
Reference: Beijing News Group graphic database