SLIPPING ON THE ICE

Curling is one of the most-watched sports in the Winter Olympics. I don’t exactly understand the sport and I’m sure many people feel the same way. Wheelchair curling is the Paralympic equivalent to the sport you would see in the Olympics. While both sports use the same stone and is played on the same ice, there are a few differences. There is no sweeping in wheelchair curling. This means that players have to throw the stone or use a delivery stock to push the stone down the ice. They have less control over where it ends on the house (the target at the end of the ice). Wheelchair curling teams consist of both men and women. Each match has eight ends. When an athlete throws the stone, another athlete can hold the wheelchair of the other player so that it stays still.

Team USA is slowly working their way up the wheelchair curling leaderboard. They lost their first two matches against Korea and Germany. Team USA made a comeback with a dominating 10-2 win over Sweden. This moved them up to the winner’s bracket. On Monday, Team USA took on Finland and then later took on the Neutral Paralympic Athletes. They came up short to both teams with the scores being 8-5 and 6-4, respectively. So far, this makes their record 1 win to 4 losses.

Even though Team USA might not be doing too great in wheelchair curling, they still are in the overall lead in the Paralympic games with a total of 15 medals (6 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze). France is in second place with 9 medals (3 gold, 3 silver, 3 bronze). I’m excited to see what other medals Team USA will be taking home.