The Winter Olympics: Beijing propaganda edition started last night. Well, the sports did. Not the Opening Ceremony. I know I "shouldn't" be watching, and I do intend to avoid the cultural stuff, but I'm genuinely passionate about Winter Sports (for... Reasons), so I intend to watch my country's athletes in action, where possible, and when I'm not doing other things (it's in a good time zone for me, so help me, lol).
Anyway, I watched the "mixed doubles" Curling last night, because it was the first sport event on. Australia was playing the USA. Round robin. I don't really give a fuck about curling (was much more interesting live, in person, anyway...), but I noticed something rather interesting, about the team dynamics...
In the American team, they were a couple, and both the guy and girl did an equal share of the work. The throw (or whatever the technical term is) of the rock, and the sweeping, or "curling"... They took it in terms. Naturally, this meant that the man did not get so worn out...
Why this was interesting? The contrast to the Australian team. I watched the whole thing. The Australian woman only threw maybe... 5 times, the whole game, and only swept once. She let the man do literally all the hard work, and spent the entire time yelling instructions. She then complained *when each "rock" didn't go exactly as planned...
She got have helped. She chose not to. And then yelled and screamed the entire time, while grinning from ear to ear. As a result, the bloke was exhausted, naturally enough, because he had to do all the work. There was no "rule", at play, here. No reason for it. She just chooses not to actually do the physical work. So naturally, they fucking lost. Right at the last minute (last rock), too...
And yet, when they were interviewed before and afterwards, she did all the talking, and the bragging. About "how they should have won", and "how it could have gone better". The bloke was almost too exhausted to talk.
It was made very apparent, before and afterwards, that they were not a couple, and that the bloke may well have been a fag. Amusingly enough, especially with how "whipped" he was...
His dad was providing the commentary, on the TV. I don't think he was terribly impressed with what went down...
Anyway, I just thought that was utterly symbolic of the relationship between most (adult) men and women, in Australia right now: The woman yells and screams, and then complains when it "isn't perfect", and the man does all the actual work, in this case literally. I grew up in that sort of environment. Let me tell you, it isn't healthy. And yet, my parents are somehow still together, so lord knows, maybe some men are just... Meant for that role. :-/
Anyway, they (the Aussie curling pair) are playing again today, twice, so it will be interesting to see if he continues to put up with the humiliation, or whether they implode, spectacularly, on mic and camera, lol... Because I know I wouldn't put up with that, for an entire week, if it was me, and if doing the work of two humans was enough to leave me nearly fainting by the end of each "end", lol...
Curling has a very structured hierarchy.
Teams consist of five members, 4 active curlers and an alternate.
The 4 active members always throw stones in a predetermined order, two each, alternating with the opposing team.
The 4 active players have very specific roles.
The "lead" is usually the shittiest player on the team and goes first. They're shooting at a blank sheet of ice and mostly lob weak "guard" stones that come up short of the rings and create protection and chaos for future stones.
The "second" goes next and starts trying to get a rock into the rings or knock another opponent's out.
The "third" goes second last and the sheet of ice is starting to get really crowded. They are usually hitting opponent rocks out or doing ricochet trick shots.
The "skip" goes last and is the captain of the team. Curling teams are referred to by the skip's last name and no one gives a shit about the other 3 players.
They hold the broom and give instructions (target to hit, aiming spot initially because rocks "curl" on the pebbled ice (ie Never go in straight lines) so every shot has to be estimated where to aim to achieve a final spot depending on speed and spin.
They hold the broom and give orders for the first six rocks thrown. Then they go and throw their team's final two stones to determines who scores that end when the ice is a clusterfuck.
So the skip never sweeps because they are holding aiming broom for each shooter. The two team members who aren't throwing or aren't the skip sweep each throw while the skip yells instructions to them to sweep harder or not depending on how the shot is lining up in transit. Sweeping the ice temporarily melts the "pebbling" directly in front of the stone, making it go faster and straighter with sweeping and slower and turning if left alone.
The skip can sweep opposing stones to try to get them to roll out of play once they cross the T-line (the horizontal line segmenting the target in half).
Aye.
In a sense it's a bit like the designated hitter in baseball, so the pitcher can focus on pitching the game. The skip is the one "playing" against the other skip, hence why they throw the last stone. They tried to call the preceding stones to make a situation they can work with.
This is doubles, so... I presume different rules.
There's only two players per team, for a start.
But that's interesting, nonetheless!
So, going on what you have said, I guess that makes the woman "the skip", and has, in both matches I watched, for each of the three teams...
But the interesting thing is, only Australia is using this method, with the woman not sweeping.
America took it in turns, as I, as a lay person, would expect. China... The guy did most of the sweeping, but the woman still did some...
Of the three, only Australia has had the situation where the woman has done zero sweeping, and, while they do take it in turns, is lining up most of the shots... On other shots, though, she just stands down the "house" end and yells...
It wouldn't be so jarring if the other teams were doing the same, because I would just say "Oh, ok, that's the rules for Mixed, then". But because it is only the Aussie team doing it, that I have seen so far, and because they have now lost both their matches, by a significant margin, with this arrangement (partly, I would suggest, because the guy gets really really tired at the end, and they are relying entirely on him to do the final "curl"), it just feels... Weird.
Like, if it's a "strategy", which they have but their opponents don't? It sure ain't working for them, unfortunately... :-/
Oh shit, I didn't even notice the mixed doubles part.
I've never seen two man curling before.
I guess you are at a significant disadvantage no matter what you do.
Traditionally in 4-man curling, the skip calls all strategy and tells the thrower where to aim and yells instructions at the sweepers depending on how well the shot is on target.
If you decide that your skip won't sweep like Australia is and just waits at the far end, you effectively forego any control or ability to make adjustments once the rock leaves the thrower's hand.
OTOH, if you employ your skip to sweep, you have no target for your thrower to aim at and no one at the far end seeing how it's going.
The thrower would be able to track the stone and yell some instructions at the sweeper, but they are also at the wrong end to see what's going on.
If I had to guess, I'd guess the Australian skip has some physical ailment that makes them suck at sweeping.
Following the stone down the ice is really challenging if you aren't good at it. The stones are thrown really fast, the ice is really slippery, sweepers have to stay AHEAD of the stone at all times, you have to crab walk down the ice perpendicular to the moving rock with a slippery slider on the bottom of your lead foot and a pebbled gripper on your back foot.
If you nick the rock at all with your broom, the shot is disqualified.
This is the info/take I came here for. Fanks. 👌🏻
You may be right. When she had to move from the shooting end (I don’t know the terminology, so bear with me) back down to the “house”, to check/dispute something, she walked along the outside, instead of sliding down the ice… Again, only person I saw doing that, the whole time, so… Maybe you’re right, and she’s injured/just doesn’t do that bit…
Certainly unusual. She’s by far the senior player, so lines up that she would be the skip. It’s just exceedingly weird to see the contrast in workload, and the massively different dynamic between their team, and everyone else…
I don’t think we’ll win, with this strategy. But hey, guess we’ll see when they play Czechia in an hour… 🤷🏻♂️
The Australian girl absolutely thrashed the competition in moguls, though, so even if we don’t medal in 🥌 (likely - this is our only team), she should have a moguls medal sewn up, I would say…
Side note: there’s a 🥌 emoji, and it’s the right colour, even. Love it, lol…
I’m not sure if you’ll get the chance (assuming you’re Canadian, yeah?), but if you do, watch the Mixed Doubles round robin game where we play Canada, or any of the upcoming matches, and you’ll see the difference between what the Aussies are doing, and what the other teams (from what I have seen), do…
It’s so… Odd, that even the commentators mentioned it, on the game (match?) today.
It’s like she, uhh, either can’t sweep, or refuses to do so, and it looks proper weird, especially when compared to the US, last night…
I’ll see what the Czechs do tonight, and how that compares, lol.
I am Canadian 😁
Curling is taken pretty seriously here and every podunk town and golf course has a curling rink.
I wonder how many curling rinks there are in all of Australia.
The play-in tournament to represent Canada on the world stage is a pretty cutthroat event.
Meanwhile, there are other nations historically that essentially send their same national squad every year because there's little internal competition.
Ooh, I can answer that question! It’s zero. There’s zero permanent rinks, sadly…
These guys train at O’Brien Icehouse in Sydney, which is by far our biggest “arena” per se, but sounds like that isn’t a permanent rink even there, sadly…
Obviously there is in Kiwiland, though, because it sounds like normally, pre-“fortress NZ”, they used to mostly train over there, oddly (NZ is notably colder than here, and is essentially our Canada, so makes sense I guess)…
I live in the second-coldest state/territory capital. We used to have one artificial ice rink, here, and one… Actual ice. But the artificial one only lasted a couple of years…
No curling (that I know of), but we do have the only ice hockey league in the state, lol…
Arena hasn’t been upgraded in decades, threatened with being sold off and demolished, etc, etc (the old story, right?).
I might have to get back there and check it out!
But needless to say, ice sports uhh, aren’t generally terribly big, here…
I don’t think Australia even has ski jumps, yet…
We have the money, and the snow, and it does get cold enough for this stuff (not North America cold, but cold enough). There’s just not the will, or momentum, yet…
We’ll get there, though.
Jindabyne/Bright Winter Olympics 2042, anyone..? Lol…
Can’t let that largest ski resort in the Southern Hemisphere (Perisher) go to waste!
I was reading about the Calgary ski jumps last night, btw… Hope they keep them! Sounds like an uphill battle, though…
Just discovered Australia has never sent anyone to the ski jumping…
New life goal: somehow learn to ski jump, and attempt to emulate Eddie the fucking Eagle, lol…
Amusingly, that’s probably theoretically possible, although obviously they’ve tightened up the rules since, and it’s financially pretty much impossible, but nonetheless…
Joining the first ever men’s curling team, if we ever put one together, may be a tad more uhh, realistic, lol…