OlymPicks: Chinese Athletes Slide Into the Curling World Cup Grand Finale, May 8-12

In OlymPicks, we highlight news, gossip, and developments regarding the buildup to Beijing's 2022 Winter Olympics.

Just like one of the sport’s expertly shot stones swiftly sliding down the ice, China is certainly picking up speed in the world of curling. Tonight, Beijing will host the opening ceremony for the grand finale of the 2019 Curling World Cup. The finale, which runs until May 12, features 24 professional teams from ten countries and is the culmination of an international series that began in September 2018 in Suzhou.

Bookending the series in such a fashion is quite a feat indeed, especially for a country that is a relative newcomer to the sport, compared to nations like Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, or Finland where it has long been mainstream.

Among the Chinese athletes who will make a showing at Beijing’s new Shougang Arena: team Dexin Ba in the men’s division and team Yilun Jiang in the women’s, while players Cao Chang and Yuan Mingjie will compete in the mixed doubles division. While the aforementioned players did not successfully qualify to partake in this weekend’s grand finale, they are automatically included in the curling events as members of the host nation.

Expert eyes will be on more established stars such as two time Swedish Olympic medalist Niklas Edin (pictured at top) and Canadian duo Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres (the big winners in Suzhou last fall), yet insiders say the solid performances displayed by the Chinese athletes are nevertheless a boon for the sport in a new and potentially huge untapped market.

As World Curling Federation head of media Cameron MacAllister puts it, this weekend’s grand finale “provides significant promotion for curling, and more broadly for winter sports, in China. Such promotion will play a vital part in China's ambition to have more than 300 million people involved in winter sports by the time it hosts the next edition of the Olympic Winter Games.”

You can watch all the sweeping and stone-throwing action by live streaming World Curling TV on YouTube (watch out Netflix). For a full schedule of the grand finale, click here.

READ: Finally, Some Wins as Chinese Stars Bring Home the Goods

Photo: CurlingZone