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!