Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Olympic Day 11 (Cortina)

February 17

We're back at the curling venue for women's competition. Coming into the venue, we see this plaque:

This lists all of the gold medal winners during the 1956 Winter Olympics held in Cortina. 32 countries (about 850 athletes) competed in four sports (skating (speed and figure), bobsleigh, ice hockey and skiing (alpine and Nordic). Note that ski jumping is counted under Nordic skiing. The opening ceremonies, ice hockey and figure skating events were held in what is now the curling venue, although at that time, it didn't have a roof. In some of the pictures in the previous blog, you can see some of the older seats that were kept from the previous Games. This was the first Winter Olympics to be televised wildly and was also the first Olympics to rely heavily on sponsors for funding.

Today we have four matches: United States vs Denmark, Italy vs Japan, Switzerland vs Korea and Canada vs Sweden. Coming into the matches, Sweden is 6-0, the USA, Switzerland and Korea are 4-2, Canada and Denmark are 3-3 and Italy and Japan are 1-5. 

When we first attended curling during the Lillehammer Olympics in 1994, we thought that any shot close to the center of the bull's eye was a great shot. But a coach from the Norwegian team explained to us that curling is a little like chess. You have to think several shots ahead in order to tell whether a shot is good or not. With that in mind, I thought today that I would try to explain some curling strategy by following the second end between Canada and Sweden which is right in front of us. Before the start of the day's competition, each team throws one stone clockwise and one stone counter-clockwise and combines the two distances from their stones to the center of the bull's eye (called the button). Canada's total distance is 42.3cm while Sweden's total is 59.8cm so Canada gets the hammer (last throw) first. In the first end, neither team scores so Canada gets to keep the hammer in the second end. This means that Sweden goes first:

The stone placed far from the house is called a guard. By putting it along the centerline, it means that you can't throw a stone right down the middle to the button. You have to go around on one side or the other. And if you are not careful, you hit the guard with your stone and get nowhere near where you want to go. Now it is Canada's turn:

Canada also throws a guard. Now the right side of the house (the bull's eye) is guarded as well. It may be that the Canadians believe that Sweden's team is stronger at throwing stones with a counter-clockwise motion than a clockwise motion, so feel it is more important to protect the right side of the house. Note that there is just enough space to squeeze a stone between the two stones, but this would be a high-risk shot:

Sweden tries to throw a stone around the red guard, but the stone curls a little too much and they end up with the back stone kind of in the middle between the guards. Throwing a stone under a guard is a way to keep the stone from immediately being knocked out because you have to go around the guard to get to the stone in the house. In this case, they didn't quite "bury" it under the guard:

Consequently, Canada takes out the red in the house and puts their own further outside. While it can also be knocked out, it may be that the Swedes will not waste a stone trying to get rid of it:

No, they decided to go ahead and get rid of the Canadian stone in the house. This time, they hit the Canadian stone head on so that the Swedish stone stayed right where it hit the Canadian stone instead of rolling in one direction or another:

Canada wants to play a complicated game and make the Swedes make tough shots so instead of again knocking the stone out of the house, they put one of their own above the Swedish stone. There is value to having stones at the top of the house like this because they can later be bumped closer to the button. Having it in front of the Swedish stone also increases the chances that it will later be bumped into the Swedish stone rather than being ejected from the house:

Sweden wants to make it harder for Canada to access the house, so they elect to throw another guard. But it curls a little too much and is too close to the other Swedish guard. Every shot is graded and this shot was rated a 0% success! On the bright side, a little more of the house is now partially protected:

Having the hammer (last throw) is valuable as it is a way to score multiple points. With this in mind, Canada elects to start putting stones in the house. They could have thrown right to the button, but they intentionally left it a little high to give themselves more flexibility later in the end:

Sweden decides to put their own stone into the house and taps the Canadian stone close to the button. While this may be bad later, having stones high in the house are more valuable right now. Further, the Canadian stone is not under cover of a guard so it can be removed later:

Canada elects to tap the Swedish stone closest to the button toward the center to make it an easier shot to get rid of later and roll their stone into the lower part of the house. Again, this was not what they were trying to do. They were trying to bump the Swedish stone back and put their stone where the Swedish stone ended up. Another 0% success shot. Good teams will try to compensate for bad shots by having a secondary goal even if they fail on their primary goal. In this case, lower stones like this one come into play for a big score if they can get rid of all of the Swedish stones in the house:

Sweden tries to freeze to their own stone in the center. The idea of a freeze is that the closer you can get to a stone, if your stone is hit, all of the momentum is transferred to the other stone which causes it to fly off while your stone stays where it is. This means that it will be very hard for Canada to get rid of the higher of those two Swedish stones in the center of the house:

This was the first really good shot in this end. Canada succeeds in taking out both of the Swedish guards and leaves their own guard a little more off the centerline. The two Swedish stones near the button are now at risk:

Sweden corrects this problem by placing another guard on the centerline. It is basically impossible for Canada to get to the button by going straight down the middle:

Canadian skip Rachel Homan makes a great draw around their guard at the top of the previous picture and puts their stone quite close to the button and partially under the two Swedish stones in the house. I missed the next picture, but Swedish skip Anna Hasselborg attempts to move the two Canadian stones off the button. Unfortunately, she hits the Canadian guard toward the top of the picture and her stone flies through the house between the button and the two stones in the house toward the bottom of the picture. This means that Canada lies two and have one stone left. They try to throw another draw to the button around the guard toward the top of the screen. This is a really tough shot, but if they see that the shot is offline, they can sweep or not sweep in such a way that it doesn't make their position any worse. As it turns off, they bang their shot off of the Canadian guard at the top of the picture and end up with 2 points. I hope that this gives you an idea of what is going on during a curling match.

In the matches, the USA makes short work of Denmark 10-3, Italy beats Japan 8-6, Switzerland beats Korea 7-5 and Canada outlasts Sweden 8-6 for Sweden's first loss. Here are some pictures from the other matches:

One our way back, we notice that the one busy street that crosses the path from the center of town to the curling stadium is being controlled by police from the Rome capital police. While his colleague on the other side of the street directs traffic, Steve hands the policeman a pin while Beth says "you have come a long way to a cold place to do this". His colleague on the other side of the street sees this and makes the sign of "please give me a pin" as we cross the street. Steve is happy to get rid of another giveaway pin and make someone happy at the same time!

Tomorrow, we are back for men's curling. Enjoy!

Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games - Olympic Day 10 (Cortina)

February 16

Today, we have back-to-back curling events starting with women's curling at 9 AM. We were not sure what time to leave for the event and based our 7 AM departure time on how long it took us to make it through security at the sliding center, which seems to be about the same distance from where we are staying. We end up getting to the stadium so early that they haven't opened the doors when we arrive! But this gives Steve a chance to go into the Olympic store and buy a few more pins. In the meantime, Beth is having a nice conversation with a volunteer who is from Melbourne, Australia. Beth tells her that Australia is one of the few places in the world where we would be comfortable living if we had to leave California and that we would see her before the next curling session.

Today, we only have three matches: Sweden vs Switzerland, China vs Canada and Denmark vs Great Britain. The sheet closest to us is empty. The stands are also almost empty:

Sweden is currently leading in the preliminaries with a 4-0 record, while Switzerland is 3-1, Denmark is 3-2, China is 2-2, and Canada and Great Britain are both amazingly 1-3. They were expected to do much better! While we are waiting for things to start, Steve thinks that one of the Swiss coaches looks very familiar:

 The woman in the middle is Mirajam Ott. She is a four-time Olympian (2002, 2006, 2010 and 2014) and won silver medals in both Salt Lake City and Turino, becoming the first curler to win two medals. In 2006, we were staying in the town of Pinerolo, which was also the site of the curling stadium. In those days, it was not unusual to run into Olympians during dinner. One evening at dinner, we noticed that the Swiss team was having dinner at a nearby table. Sean (at Steve's urging) went over to give Mirajam an Olympic pin but was too scared to stay to get one in return. She laughed and waved Sean and Steve back over and gave us their team pin. She is now the assistant coach for the Swiss team.

While both Canada and Great Britain are both 1-3, they immediately show that they are not going to go away easily. Great Britain gets out to a 2-0 lead in the first end and goes on to route Denmark 7-2. China was up 2-0 on Canada after 3 ends (like innings in baseball), but Canada gets 4 points in the 4th end and cruises from there to win 10-5. The only close game was Switzerland vs Sweden. The score was tied 3-3 after 5 ends, but Sweden scored 3 points in the last 5 ends and edges Switzerland 6-4 to stay undefeated. Here are some pictures from these matches:

We were not sure what was going to happen when the event ended at around noon. We really did not want to go all the way out of the venue and have to go back through security again. By the way, the security in Cortina is way more thorough than in Milano. They have checked the focal length of Steve's camera lens every day while no one in Milano ever gave it a thought. Steve kidded with the security guard that in Rio, he was allowed to bring in a 300 mm lens, then in PyeongChang a 200 mm lens was okay and now, it has to be less than 200 mm. At this rate, he'll only be able to use an iPhone in the next Olympics!

Fortunately, the organizers had considered the possibility of people having tickets to successive sessions and had a place where we could stand for the 30 minutes or so that it took for security to make sure that the venue was cleared before allowing the next group in. Unfortunately, there was no one in this group that was interested in trading pins.

When we are allowed back into the venue, we stop outside the arena for lunch and choose the hot Alpine sandwiches after to checking to see that they are composed of speck (a type of ham), mushrooms and cheese. They key feature is that they are warm!

Back inside, we get to see all of the things that they do to get the ice surfaces ready. First, this guy (who we think is the head ice official) comes out:

Curling ice surfaces have tiny bumps all over them called pebbles, so this guy is the pebbler! The key ability of this guy is to be able to shuffle backward across the ice surface at a more or less constant speed so that the density of pebbles is constant. After the pebbler comes a machine that looks like a hand-operated Zamboni. It has a blade in the front that chops off the tops of any pebbles that are above a certain height. Third comes a guy pulling a wooden rack consisting of all eight curling stones of one color. Honestly, we are not sure whether this is for the benefit of the stones or the ice. Finally, a guy comes with something like a large, wide floor mop that is designed to remove any ice residue left after the first three steps.

We should also mention the purpose of the pebbles. Some people compare curling to the Italian sport of bocce, in that you are trying to get as many of your stones as close to the target as possible. The difference is that you have 2-3 people who are changing the speed and direction of the stone while it is moving. This is where the pebbles come in. If you scrape the pebbles away in front of the stone, it will go faster and further than if you don't sweep. If you sweep to one side of the path, the stone will turn in that direction. In addition, if you try to throw a stone along a path that has already been heavily swept, then you will have a very difficult time getting it to curl (curve).

Our second session is a men's event featuring Norway vs Great Britain, Canada vs Czechia, Germany vs Sweden and China vs Italy. Going into today's matches, Canada is 4-1, Great Britain is 4-2, Norway and Italy are 3-2, Germany is 2-3, Sweden is 1-4 and China and Czechia are 0-5. It is really shocking that Sweden is 1-4 given that their skip, Niklas Edin, is one of the best curlers in the world and competing in his 5th Olympics. He already has gold, silver and bronze medals from his first four Olympics.

You may have heard that there has been controversy in curling. In the first match, the Swedish third, Oskar Eriksson and the Canadian third, Marc Kennedy got into a yelling match over the Canadians allegedly double touching their stones. This means that the person throwing the stone touches the stone again after letting go of the handle. If done with force, this can improve the trajectory of the stone. If lightly touched, it makes no difference (a curling stone weighs 42 lbs). In reality, the stone and the thrower are both sliding along the ice at nearly the same speed so that the time when the thrower's hand is close to the stone is long. The rules say that double touching is illegal and the person throwing the stone should call a penalty on himself and take the stone out of play. Edin had been concerned that curling was not self-regulating this problem and decided to make this point. In the end, calling it out seems to have taken Edin's focus away from actually playing the game which could explain Sweden's position near the bottom of the standings.

As it turned out, three of the four matches were blow-outs. Canada beat Czechia 8-2, China beat Italy 11-4 and Germany beat Edin and Sweden 7-3. All three losing teams conceded before the full 10 ends were completed leaving Norway and Great Britain alone on the ice. The game was down to the 10th end with the score tied 6-6 and Norway having the hammer (last throw - a huge advantage). The Great Britain skip, Bruce Mouat, did all he could to make it hard for the Norwegians to score, but the final throw from the Norwegian skip, Magnus Ramsfjell, was good for one point and a 7-6 win. Here are some pictures from these matches:

Walking back from the curling venue, Steve was starting to feel a little like he was back in Nagano where everyone wanted his autograph or photo. Today, two little kids bowed down in the "we are not worthy" pose after seeing all of pins on Steve's vest and hat. A good number of people also ask for pictures. It is really a weird situation for an introvert! At least a good number of people are getting into pins and want to trade.

We still had leftover pizza from the previous night so we had a quiet night at home and Steve worked on the blog. Tomorrow, we are back at curling for men's curling. Enjoy!