WTF… how is the IOC allowing that to happen? If they don’t provide the results that should be an automatic forfeit.
I mean, I don’t remember all the nuances of the scoring, but I understand why they sweep the ice. It only takes about 90 seconds of sweeping to see what it accomplishes.
I expect the ROC would have characterized this as an administrative delay so the IOC was lenient? I don’t know what type of COVID masks the players used but when the early COVID guidance here recommended masks outside I found the mask affected my breathing when I went cycling. Maybe it was part psychological though.
“Oh, you meant the COVID tests? We have them right here. I thought you meant the urine and blood tests, which we are still performing.”
(Apply a thick Russian accent.)
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Questionable call against the South Korean skater in men’s 1000m short track semifinals
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I always think I detect a bit of terror in the faces of the luge competitors. The luge ride reminds me of Clark Griswold’s flying saucer ride in Christmas Vacation.
Well, I kinda thought that was the point, but it didn’t really look like it, so I wasn’t certain whether it was supposed to make the stone move faster or slower. Also, one of the few things I DO remember from my one experience curling is that the ice was quite smooth, and not at all pebbly. I don’t think I would have lost my balance if it had been rougher. Or, I would have lost my balance differently, if that makes sense. We also didn’t have the right kind of shoe, since we were just one-time guests at a party that took place at a curling club.
Sweeping can also change the direction of stone, if only slightly, by sweeping one side of the path more than the other.
It looked like they were trying to do that, but i couldn’t see any impact. 
It’s more the spin, or curl, depends on the friction. Sweep hard heats up the ice making it smoother and therefore less friction, so it grabs less and doesn’t curl as much going straighter. This also makes it go faster since it doesn’t have as much friction
I’m sure it’s really subtle, but some of those throws end up being very accurate, so it’s probably doing something.
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It’s certainly enough to notice it if you are deliberately sweeping only one side.
Olympic curlers probably have better aim than the folks I was curling with, so their “course corrections” from sweeping are probably barely perceptible. It’s also a lot more obvious on the ice than it is watching. Something I noticed when my group finished before a few others.
The ice is certainly supposed to be “pebbled” according to this document. (See page 3) @Lucy if yours wasn’t then maybe the arena wasn’t capable of creating the proper playing surface? Not sure. But it certainly wasn’t an accident when we went. There was a youth hockey practice after we finished and the zamboni came out to smooth the ice and no pebbles for the hockey practice.
If you curl on hockey ice at some local arena, they sometimes don’t pebble or do a poor job. So the pebbling may not be prominent.
On dedicated curling ice they def have pebbling.
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The Italy/Canada ending was ridiculously close. Canada really screwed that one up.
Well I have nothing to compare it to, but it was certainly noticeable and surprising to me, since I’d previously had no idea that was a thing.
This place was in the expensive part of town so I am guessing that they did it right to appease their rich clientele.
I’d be interested in watching them do the pebbling. Undoing it was just a matter of running a regular zamboni over it. It sounds like pebbling it is a bit more involved.
Dedicated curling ice is a different temp and I am not sure if they Zamboni much. Or as much as an ice arena for skating.
Ice arena ice for skating after the zamboni is done someone sprays a mist of water on top so it freezes as dots on top (thats the pebble).
The dedicated curling club will have a ton more consistency and expertise in cleaning their sheet and pebbling it.
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Quote by Hilary Knight of US Women’s hockey team before last night’s game against the Canadian team sums up this great rivalry:
“We want to punish each other, but within the rules.”
Yeah, they managed to get away with it because everybody was focused on the curling.
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…or a Dockers commercial
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