Joe Polo handled this duty when Shuster’s team won gold at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. The team’s alternate player often does the matching while starters rest.
In the quiet of evening, after competition has ended, the venue echoes with a scudding sound of practice throws and the heavy thunk of takeouts. Translation: His stone was missing the mark, so he put a little more spin on the handle. Players click stopwatches hanging from their waists, calling out the time it takes for a throw to reach the target, or “house.” “You can’t actually see that, visually, but you’re trying to get a map of what the sheet is doing.”ĭuring practice, Beighton sets laser “speed traps” just past the hog line, the data relayed instantly to his cellphone. “Sometimes the sheets are sloped to the wall or away from the wall or there’s a little dip or high edges,” Peterson says. Icemakers initially struggled with the sheets in Beijing as they repurposed the old Water Cube swimming venue from the 2008 Summer Olympics. The building itself has an effect because ice is only as uniform as the floor beneath it. Sheets closest to the stands might act differently because of body heat from spectators. Outside humidity can render the ice slower or faster. Though the Olympics hire veteran icemakers from around the world, no two sheets can be made exactly alike. This “pebble” provides the best texture for curling. “That kind of how we match.”Įach day, specialists walk the 150-foot-long sheets at the “Ice Cube” arena, water tanks strapped to their backs, a handheld wand sprinkling droplets that freeze on contact to the chilled surface. “They’re always mixing the stones around and we use all that data to figure out why they’re mixing around,” he says. When other teams play, Beighton peers through binoculars to scout how they are matching. “It just depends,” says Tabitha Peterson, skip of the U.S. They might use it early, when shots are less critical, or save it for taking out an opponent’s stone because hard throws travel straighter. Teams might give the “cutter” to their best thrower.
The key is identifying the one tricky rock - sometimes two - in each set on a given sheet. Stones also change over the course of a tournament, so teams get an hour of practice each night for “matching.” Teams did not bring their own stones to the Beijing Games officials provided two sets of eight for each sheet.Įach handcrafted stone has its own characteristics - slightly faster or slower, straighter or curvier. When players tilt the stone up before throwing, they are activating the sensor. The handles bolted on top contain heat sensors and lights that blink red if the thrower releases too late, past the “hog” line. Weighing 38 to 44 pounds, they are made of common green granite with an insert of blue hone granite that is better suited for sliding on ice.
The World Curling Federation uses only rocks from Ailsa Craig, a Scottish Island known for its quarries.
0 kommentar(er)
