ANCIENT SPORT
Curling athletes straighten out ‘Valium’ jokes
The ancient pursuit of rubbing the ice with a broom while screaming at an inanimate object still draws derision
Pyeongchang — Tired of being the butt of jokes, Olympic curlers have hit back over accusations their sport is boring and requires little physical effort. An ancient pursuit said to date back to medieval Scotland, where teams armed with brooms furiously rub the ice while screaming at an inanimate object, it triggers excitement once every four years. But curlers at the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games are fed up with armchair fans likening the slow-burner sport to Valium on ice or suggesting you don’t need to be especially athletic to participate. "People tend to think that we just throw our stones, a bit like darts," bristled Finland’s Tomi Rantamaeki, drawing a comparison to a game frequently associated with portly pub-goers. "The difference in darts is that you don’t move the ones you threw earlier," he sniffed. "They’re not reading the game in the same way that we do." A strangely hypnotic sport often referred to as "chess on ice", curling requires lots of patience, cold calc...
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