Why is the curling game full of "screams" and "friction"?

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, February 1

Xinhua News Agency reporter Ma Sijia Liang Jinxiong

Curling is one of the seven major events of the Beijing Winter Olympics. In the curling field, athletes are often heard shouting "hahaha" and "me me", and the athletes who follow curling are frantically rubbing the ice with ice brushes, adding a touch of blood to this brain-burning sport known as "chess on ice".

"Friction" and "screaming" are all for the sake of defeating the enemy, and the reason for this has to start from the curling rules. The curling four-man tournament consists of 4 main athletes and 1 substitute player each, each with 10 innings and a duration of 150 minutes. Each innings of both bases from first to fourth base players are required to throw 2 curling pots in order, with 16 curlers alternately thrown by both sides. The captain directs his teammates at one end of the game to throw the pot, and the two teammates who don't throw the pot are responsible for wiping the ice.

The team members responsible for "screaming" are generally captains or pitchers at fourth base, who shout to their ice-wiping teammates whether to "rub" or not. "Hahaha" is actually the English word "Hurry!" or "Hurry hard" for short, meaning "quick ice wiping"; "me me me" is "Whoa Whoa Whoa", meaning "stop wiping ice".

Why "friction"? The ice surface of the curling court is special, which is an ice surface with "water drop points". Before the competition, the ice maker takes a shower-like tool to spray water droplets evenly on the smooth ice surface, which condense into ice points when the ice surface is cold, so as to increase the friction between the ice surface and the curling. Ice skaters can quickly rub through the ice brush to melt off the ice points on the track, thereby forming a thin film of water, reducing the friction between the Xiaoice pot and the ice lane, so that the curling speed is faster; on the ice track, the curling trajectory thrown by the athletes is an arc, and by melting the ice points by wiping the ice, it can affect the direction of curling travel, and finally make the curling reach the specified position.

Seemingly simple "friction" can affect the outcome of almost every pot throw, requiring a high degree of concentration on the part of the athlete. With the joint efforts of the commander, the pot thrower, and the ice wiper, the tactical goal can be finally achieved. Therefore, there must be a high degree of tacit understanding between the players.

Why does it take to "scream" when giving orders? The standard curling field is more than 40 meters long (the distance between the two end lines), the track is far away, and four teams on the four tracks are competing at the same time, if you do not shout loudly, your teammates are likely to be inaudible; the size of the shouting can sometimes indicate the size of the ice rubbing strength of your teammates, and it can also play an exciting role in cheering your teammates.

In addition to simple English instructions, Chinese athletes will also issue some Chinese instructions, such as "after-force", "wipe", "light bump", "light pass", etc.; "top line" and "downline" are also common instructions, "top line" means "sweep the line straighter", "off line" is to make the line curvature larger.

In addition, the command team members can often be heard to issue instructions on the end of the game where the base camp is located. "Zone" refers to the division of the area from the front line to the end of the base camp into 10 zones, such as "three zones", that is, the hope that the pot will stay in the three zones; "seconds" is the time it takes for the pot to pass through the ice path between the two front lines to control the force used by the throwers.

Curling is the sport with the most matches, the longest schedule and single-day competition time at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. According to the schedule, the mixed doubles competition will determine the gold medal on the 8th, followed by the men's and women's quadruple matches on the 9th and 10th respectively, and the gold medal will be produced on the 19th and 20th respectively. (End)