NAGANO 1998	MARCH 2, 1998 VOL. 151 NO. 9
	Sweeping All Before It Making its Olympic debut at the Nagano Games, curling's mixture of skill and strategy proves to be right on target By BARRY HILLENBRAND /KARUIZAWA ynics chortled when the International Olympic Committee voted to make curling a full-fledged Olympic sport, beginning with the Nagano Games. After all, poking fun at curling seems as easy as, well, sliding stones down a sheet of ice. There is no question that, on the face of it, the spectacle of grown men and women furiously sweeping a path for 20-kg granite rocks as they slide toward a target embedded in ice is fairly ludicrous. Would anyone outside of Canada, where the sport is revered, pay the slightest attention to Olympic curling? The answer is, emphatically, yes. Last week, as the first ever gold medals in curling were awarded, it had become the surprise hit of the Nagano Games. Everyone had something to say about this ancient sport, which is generally considered to have originated on the frozen lochs of Scotland in the 16th century. Sure, some of the buzz was derogatory. But curlers are accustomed to such derision. "The criticism is mostly out of ignorance," shrugs Richard Hart of Canada's powerhouse men's team. "But people are beginning to see what a great sport curling really is." The sellout crowds that filled the Karuizawa Kazakoshi Park Arena needed no convincing. Flag-waving fans greeted each clever shot with roars of amazement. In curling, victory comes to the team which ends with one of its eight stones closest to the center of the target, called the house. The trick--and excitement--is in delivering stones so that they block the opposition's route or knock its stones out of the house. Swiss supporters rang cowbells while the Japanese replied with honks from the little plastic horns that have provided so much of the background noise to the Games. "Usually, it's just our families who come," says Peter Lindholm, skip (curling-speak for captain) of the Swedish team. "The crowds here are big and wonderful." The Japanese, relative newcomers to the sport, even had a local hero of their own: Makoto Tsuruga, 20, who has the casual good looks of a pop star. As skip of the Japanese team, Tsuruga played a central role in one of the most dramatic moments of the men's tournament by skillfully maneuvering Japanese stones into a winning position against the U.S. squad. Tension was high as American skip Tim Somerville prepared to throw the hammer, as the final stone of the match is known. Somerville's delivery was perfect, knocking the Japanese stones out of the center of the house, leaving the American stone in winning position and eliminating Japan from medal contention. The crowd went wild. Tsugura dissolved into tears. Such was the stuff that held television viewers transfixed and won new converts to curling. In Britain, the sport became a minor cult thanks to the hours of coverage the BBC devoted to the cliffhanger matches. BBC Sports knows a good thing when it sees it. Curling, like golf, is filled with moments of quiet crisis, and players need nerves of steel. All this makes for gripping viewing, even in countries without a history in the sport--like Sweden, where, when television producers foolishly cut away from curling in favor of figure skating, irate viewers raised a shrill protest. Canadians need no instruction in the joys of curling, a sport first brought to North America by Scottish immigrants. More than a million Canadians are active curlers and televised club matches clutter Saturday afternoon television. The competition to represent Canada at the Olympics--and have the chance to win a gold medal--was intense. And so it was no surprise that Canada dominated play in Nagano. The Canadian women won the gold medal by soundly beating Denmark. But the Danes were still thrilled with the silver--their first ever medal in the Winter Olympics. Their skip, Helena Blach Lavrsen, became a hero back home, where there is only one curling ice in the entire country. The Canadian men swaggered into Nagano as heavy favorites. Skip Mike Harris dismissed the level of play in the Olympics, saying that there were at least 40 curling teams in Canada good enough to win gold. As it turned out, Harris' team was not one of them. Canada was trounced in the finals by a sharp Swiss team that didn't miss a throw. Curling, like all athletic competition, can be a cruel and fickle sport.
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