It Would Make Your Hair Curl

Shocking news from the Winter Olympics!!!  A member of the Russian mixed curling team is suspected of being a drug cheat!  The Winter Olympics is tainted, the good name of curling has been trashed forever.  This dreadful scandal certainly raises a lot of questions such as; Why is anyone surprised?  What are Russians doing at the Olympics seeing as how their team was banned? And most important of all, what the hell is curling anyway?

The answers to these questions are, in order; Nobody was surprised, a bunch of supposedly drug clean Russians were permitted to turn up as long as they didn't compete under their national flag or something and your guess is as good as mine.

Perhaps the most significant thing to come out of all of this is the sudden spotlight thrown on the hitherto somewhat obscure sport of curling.  In an attempt to redress my shameful lack of knowledge on the subject I googled "curling" but found that most of the entries referred to the pants worn by the Norwegian team.  The Norwegians might not be drug cheats but it does appear that they try and induce epileptic seizures in their opponents with their sartorial appearance on the ice.  Still in a sport that involves pushing rocks with brooms the Norwegians should be commended for attempting to introduce something of interest.

What with the drugs and the pants it would appear that this is curlings moment on the world stage.  Admittedly none of the publicity actually relates to the sport itself but curling can at least claim to have been standing nearby when all of the drama happened.  The disqualified Russian has blamed a disgruntled former teammate who didn't make the cut for spiking his drink with a banned substance.  If nothing else this gives us an insight into the vicious, cutthroat world of international curling.  No doubt there is a ferocious level of competition bubbling beneath the surface with ancient enmities boiling over as the team from the US Virgin Islands Curling Association takes on traditional rivals, Curling Canada.  Incidentally Curling Canada sounds like something you would do with a roll of wallpaper.

Curling has something to do with lawn bowls, something to do with boche and everything to do with shoving rocks around on ice.  As such it is ideal for the Winter Olympics that home of every sport too esoteric, silly or ice dependent to get a gig at the Summer games.  Curling is sometimes referred to as "Chess on Ice" but probably only by people who play it.  Strangely chess has never been referred to as "tabletop curling".  Curling was developed in Scotland a nation whose other contribution to international sport is golf.  Together these two should dispel any suggestion that the Scots lack a sense of humour. 

But back to the Olympics.  While the not exactly Russian team is sunk in drug despondent gloom in the men's competition the Swedes and the Swiss have been tearing up the ice (those rocks are heavy) to make the playoffs while South Korea and Japan are jostling for prime position amongst the women.  Despite their spectacular pants the Norwegian men's team is falling behind.  I hope the final is televised because I've been seized with an irrational desire to watch it.