Beijing Winter Olympic Curling Venue and Competition Pots (Visual China, Xinhua News Agency)
We can often intuitively feel the characteristics of some sports from the name, such as figure skating, which is called "ballet on ice". Curling, on the other hand, enjoys the reputation of "chess on ice" because it tests the physical and mental strength of the participants, and shows the beauty of movement and the wisdom of trade-offs.
Unlike many competitive sports that pursue "higher, faster and stronger", curling can be called a "work of art" in the sports world, both in terms of sports and the equipment itself. As a gentleman's sport that tests elegance, skill and wisdom, it is suitable for people of almost any age to participate, so it is also called "a sport suitable for 9 to 99 years old".
This famous painting records the curling movement more than 400 years ago
The Belgian flamboyant painter Peter Bruegel Sr. is the earliest recorded image of curling
The origins of curling remain a mystery to this day. In fact, the debate on this topic has been going on for more than a hundred years. One view is that curling originated on the European continent, the other is that curling originated in Scotland, and evidence can be found in both. Scholars who advocate the origins of the European continent believe that curling originated somewhere on the European continent, and this aspect can be confirmed by similar curling competition scenes depicted in famous ancient European art works.
In the information on the official website of the World Curling Federation, the earliest image of curling is the Belgian flamboyant painter Peter Bruegel Sr. In his 1565 work The Hunter in the Snow (also known as The Hunter Returns), he depicts the hunter returning from a hunt in the depths of winter. It is also the first known heavy snow painting in Europe and is often considered typical evidence of the "Xiaoice River Age", as this New Year's Eve winter from 1564 to 1565 was the coldest winter in European memory. In the painting, it is cold and snowy, and three hunters in the foreground return from the jungle accompanied by hunting dogs, but this hunt is obviously not a success. One of them carried a thin fox, and the other two hunters returned empty-handed, illustrating the scarcity of prey and the hardships of life, and in front of one of the hunters was a string of hare footprints that might have escaped or been missed by the hunters. Under the painter's pen, the hunter's footsteps appear very tired, and the overall visual impression of the picture is calm, cold and gloomy. At the far end of the picture, the pond has formed a thick layer of ice, on which people are playing, some people playing hockey with modern hockey sticks, and others playing curling on another field. The curling in the painting is very similar to modern curling utensils, and the prototype base and slender handle are clearly visible.
The Snow Hunter belongs to a series of works by Peter Bruegel Sr., the most famous of which is now in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria. The series currently contains only five paintings depicting country scenes in different months of the year, according to which art historians generally believe that there should be 12 works in the series, similar to the 12 paintings of the Limburg brothers' "The Lord of Berry's Prayer for Luxury Time", although some people think it may be six. Peter Bruegel the Younger, the eldest son of Peter Bruegel the Elder, copied The Snow Hunter at the end of the 16th century, and this copied version is currently in the collection of the Fuji Museum of Art in Tokyo.
In fact, this Painting of The Snow Hunter has had a long-term impact in various fields. Art historian Martin Kemp, for example, has said that "The Snow Hunter" is one of the most popular Christmas card pictures he has ever seen. The cover of the Chinese edition of the cambridge university archaeologist Brian Fagan's book Xiaoice River Age: How Climate Changed History 1300-1850 also featured the painting. Of course, the deepest relationship with "Snow Hunter" is still a film and television drama. It was the inspiration for Roy Anderson's film "Cold Branches", and the few black birds parked on the branches in the upper left of the picture are the source of the title, and the director used this to express that "what we do can be expressed in different ways." It is a multinational comedy feature film that premiered at the 71st Venice Film Festival and won the Golden Lion award, and also won the 2015 European Film Award for Best Comedy Film. In addition, the painting "Snow Hunter" has appeared in the Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film "Solaris Star" and the 1974 film "Mirror", Russ von Trier's 2011 film "Melancholia" and Alain Tanner's 1983 film "White City".
In addition to Snow Hunter, Bruegel's 1565 painting Winterscape, Jack Gremer's Winter in 1575, and Paul Adams's late 16th-century carvings all record scenes of people playing on frozen ice in winter. The player throws a circular object at the target point on the ice and glides along with the object, much like curling today. However, some scholars believe that the games recorded in these works do not have ice rubbing movements, and the weight of curling is not clear, more like a game of throwing oak stoppers on ice that is still prevalent in Austrian folklore today, rather than being the "ancestor" of curling.
Handcrafted, the curling stone comes only from the small island of Scotland
In the process of curling, it is necessary to rely on the experience and feel of workers, relying on the perfect cooperation of eyes and hands (Xinhua News Agency)
Compared with the "European Continental Origin Theory", there is more physical evidence that curling originated in Scotland. The first manuscript of curling was born in February 1540, when the Scottish John McQuelin recorded in Latin the scene of a monk named Sclette and his friend Hamilton playing a challenge on the ice. The earliest print of curling is an elegy by the Scottish poet Henry Adamson in honor of a friend, which mentions his contributions to golf, curling and other sports.
The most important archaeological evidence for curling also comes from Scotland. In the early years, a piece of stone (curling) was found in a dry pond in Dubrian, which was obviously carefully polished and slightly square, and had a groove on one side of the stone for grasping, equivalent to the handle of modern curling. The stone weighs 26 pounds, about half the weight of modern curling. The most important is the inscription on it with the year 1511 and the owner's name, which is the earliest curling found in the world to date.
Exactly where curling originated is still unknown, but it is indisputable that the Scots developed the sport. They improved the equipment of curling, developed the rules of curling, and exported the sport to many countries around the world. Researchers generally believe that due to the relatively cold winters in Scotland, people had to abandon golf and turn to this ice catapult, which quickly became popular. Neighbour to neighbour, village to village, Scotland is dominated by fiery curling all winter. At that time, a large national competition was held every year, people rushed to the competition venue from all directions, and thousands of people competed simultaneously on the frozen lake, and the scene was extremely spectacular.
Founded in 1716, the Scottish Kilsyth Curling Club was the world's oldest curling club. At that time, in order to carry out curling activities, a shallow pond of 100 meters × 250 meters was deliberately built artificially, which was specially used for curling practice and competition in winter, and as a historical witness, this pond still exists today.
Although after its introduction to North America in the 20th century, the sport surpassed that of Scotland in Canada and other places, curling clubs can be found everywhere – some people describe it as the popularity of curling in Canada is seen in the three most buildings in Canada, one is the post office, one is the bank, and the other is the curling hall. But the "land of invention" still has an irreplaceable place for the sport of curling, because all the competition-grade curling stones come from only one place, the island of Krieger in the sea west of Scotland.
Because curling has special requirements for the material, one is to require it to be hard enough, and the other is to require it not to rupture due to impact under low temperature conditions. The former is not difficult to achieve under today's scientific and technological development, and the second is difficult to do. In the course of the evolution of curling over the centuries, it has been found that when the quartz content in granite tends to zero, the pot body does not break when it is hit at low temperatures, and among the known stones on Earth, only the granite on Krieger Island does not contain quartz and has the ability to resist blows at low temperatures. The island is only 16 km from the main island of Britain, with a circumference of only 3.2 km and the highest point is 338 meters above sea level. Because it is not far from the main island, since the 16th century, people have been active on the island, which has also created conditions for discovering its stone characteristics. With the development of curling around the world, the annual amount of curling rough mined on the island has also risen from 500 tons in the early 2000s to thousands of tons today, fortunately there is still a long process before exhaustion, local experts said, "at the current mining rate, at least 10 million years can be excavated." ”
Although the stone originated from the island, the finished curling product was not produced on the island, but was transported to the South Ayrshire processing plant, 50 kilometres from the island, and then sold around the world via Glasgow. In the market, a set (16 pieces) of high-end curling originating in Scotland is priced at more than 130,000 yuan, and the ordinary one also exceeds 50,000 yuan. The main reason for the high price is the labor cost. From the rough to the finished curling product, a total of mining, shaping, polishing, coloring, adding handles and other links, in addition to the mining link, the other links are all completed by hand. Mark Cullen, sales service manager of Case Stone Company in Scotland, once said in an interview with the media, "There are no two identical curling rough in the world, so in the processing process, it is necessary to rely on the experience and feel of the workers, relying on the perfect cooperation of eyes and hands." Mark said that producing a set of curling requires five skilled workers and takes three days to complete, which is naturally expensive. Therefore, every curling pot is actually a unique "work of art" in the world. For the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Case Factory produced more than 190 curling and then selected 96 to send to the field.
Picking gold and silver, China has become a rising star in the curling world
At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Chinese team consisting of Zhou Yan at first base, Yue Qingshuang at second base, Liu Yin at third base and Wang Bingyu at fourth base won bronze medals in women's curling (Visual China)
Curling first appeared in Asia in Pre-World War II Japan, where the Japanese Olympic Committee introduced curling to Nagano Prefecture, Japan, in preparation for the 1940 Winter Olympics in Sapporo (later cancelled due to World War II), and held a curling exhibition tournament in Nagano Prefecture using curling equipment brought back from Germany. However, due to the war, curling did not develop well.
China started curling late, but it has made very rapid progress and is a rising star in this project. In 1993, the mainland began to contact curling, and in 1995, the sport was officially introduced; in March of the same year, the first curling workshop was successfully held, and curling entered Heilongjiang Province for the first time.
From 1996 to 1998, the second to fourth curling training courses were held, setting off a learning climax in the northeast region, and in 1997, the first national invitational tournament was successfully held. With the deepening of exchanges between the Japanese Curling Association and Heilongjiang Curling, it has further promoted the development of curling in Heilongjiang Province and even the mainland, and improved the competitive level of curling in the mainland, at the same time, the Heilongjiang Curling Team represented China for the first time to go abroad to participate in world competitions.
In 2002, China joined the World Curling Federation. Three years later, the continental women's curling team made its debut at the World Championships and finished seventh; at the 2008 World Curling Championships, the continental women's curling team won a valuable silver medal after Canada. In the same year, men's curling also achieved a historic breakthrough of fourth place in the World Championships, marking China's curling among the world's strong curling teams.
2009 is the most brilliant year of China's curling project, the World University Winter Games was held in Harbin, the mainland, curling as a traditional winter event was included, the mainland as the host to participate in the men's and women's events, and achieved the first place in the women's and the third place in the men's, which is the best result achieved in the international competition since the mainland launched the curling project. Subsequently, the women's curling team won a valuable gold medal at the World Championships of the women's curling team, which made the Chinese curling team attract the attention of the world. Zhou Yan at first base, Yue Qingshuang at second base, Liu Yin at third base and Wang Bingyu at fourth base still have high popularity among Chinese sports fans.
With points from the three-year World Championships, the Chinese men's and women's curling teams also qualified for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, and won the bronze medal in women's curling and the eighth place in men's curling in the first Winter Olympic trip.
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"The Gentleman's Game"
The curling competition is a ice track with an ice surface paved with ice, and at each end there is an identical camp (or round base, base circle), and the camps are used alternately after each round (according to the throwing area and the target area). Each team plays four players — first, second, third, and fourth (usually captain). In each round, two teams of players alternately throw pots, and each player can throw two pots, for a total of 10 rounds. In the round base, the pot that is closer to the center of the circle than all the curling of the opposing team counts for one point, and after the game, the team with the most points wins.
On the ice track between the two bases of the center line, after throwing the pot, two members of their own team can brush the ice on both sides of the sliding curling to control the direction, speed and distance of the pot. This ice brushing action, coupled with the shouts of the team members, constitutes a highlight of the curling competition. However, after the jug passes the center line of the target area, only one team member is allowed to brush the ice, and the opposing captain can also brush the ice, aiming to lead the curling out of the base circle and make it out.
Curling has some unique rules, such as the "last pot right" – the right of the team that fell behind in the previous innings to throw another pot. For example, some fouls can be handled by the opposing team (deemed valid or out).
Like many sports that also originated in the British Isles and do not win by physical confrontation, curling competitions have a gentleman's tradition and have always been recognized as "gentlemen's games", and the "curling spirit" (or "game culture") must be reflected in the game: no schadenfreude due to the opponent's mistakes; no demeaning opponents; no interference with the opponent's performance level; after unintentional violations, the opposing captain should be actively informed; if the score difference is too large, the laggard should voluntarily give up the game and admit defeat. There is also a friendly tradition: after a match, the winning team toasts the losing team. Watching a high-level curling competition is a delightful treat.
At the beginning of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, men's and women's curling finally appeared as an official gold medal event, and until then, curling was a performance sport. At the first Winter Olympics in 1924, the British team won the men's curling exhibition competition, but no medals were awarded at the time, and it was only in 2006 that the medals were awarded to the country.
Author: Guo Chaohao
Editor: Fan Jing