Curling
From Wikipedia
Team members 4 per team (2 in Mixed Doubles)Olympic 1924 (Retroactively made official in 2006).
Officially added in 1998.
Curling is a team sport in which stones are slid across a sheet of carefully prepared ice towards a target area. It is related to bowls, boule and shuffleboard. Players sweep the ice vigorously with brooms to manipulate the trajectory of the stones.
Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game, points being scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones.
Dear Steven;
Did you watch the recent Winter Olympics held in Vancouver?
Dad and I did, and one thing was certain. Malaysia was way under-represented. In fact, Malaysia has never participated in the Winter Olympics! And being in an equatorial tropical region of earth is poor excuse for this blatant shortcoming. I feel a nationalistic need to rectify this situation. I think that I will start a Malaysian curling team for the 2014 Winter Olympics.
I did not come to this conclusion lightly. Do you remember our ill-fated ski vacation in Breckenridge, CO? Remember how I took ski lessons and relentlessly practiced going up the bunny hill with the rope tow? I looked so snazzy in your old snowsuit that you had outgrown and handed down to me. Step aside, Lindsey Vonn... here comes Steven's hot snow-vixen mama! Bet Lindsey never flopped around on the ground as alluringly as I did.
At the end of the lesson, Dad deemed that we were ready for the "Green Circle" slopes. I understood that Green Circle means the easiest slopes on a mountain. Green Circle trails are generally wide and groomed, typically with slope gradients ranging from 6% to 25%. However, Green Circle in Breckenridge apparently means "Place for flatlander snow-vixens to die."
The nightmare began with the dismounting off the chairlift. Auntie Sue assured me that even veteran skiers fell off the chair face-first and ate snow. Then I waddled like the proverbial duck with oversized long skinny planks duct-taped to its feet, to the the start of the "Green Circle" trail. Small children were zipping around me on their miniature skis with no poles. I'm quite sure that they were midget offspring of mountain norsemen and yetis.
I planted my poles and dug the edges of my skis into the white snow. And I fell. I stood up perpendicular to the mountain's fall-line like the ski pro told me. And I fell. I stood up again. And this time, I slid backwards down the mountain. And then, I fell. I wedged my skis, and I fell. I snow-plowed, and I fell. I finally stayed down, and begged tearfully to be left to die alone. "Go without me. I will only slow you down. Let me slide down this mountain on my butt. Maybe I will meet you at the bottom in 2 days. Maybe I won't make it. But I love you all."
Thankfully, Auntie Sue managed to flag down a rescue snowmobile during my heroic gesturings.
So you see why skiing is out of the question for my Olympic debut in 2014. And I suspect that with my lack of agility and coordination, figure skating would also be out of the question. But I do know how to use a broom! I have years of experience sweeping and cleaning. And I have experience looking stupid. Which leads us to curling! All I need is to find 3 other Malaysians to complete the team, and a very warm sweater. Dad is totally supportive of this noble venture.
Wish me luck.
Love,
Mom and Dad
