thurdl sports

Olympic Moment of Day Three

Mens Curling. Okay, I swore to myself that I wasn't going to go all curling fan boy and make it the center focus of my Olympic moments of the day. However, the US team pulled off an amazing match against the defending champions today. That was big enough, beating Norway in the first draw of the round robin. But what was even bigger was the eighth end.

For those who aren't familiar with curling scores, only one team can score in an end. One point is scored per each stone that is closer than an opponent's stone. That makes for a maximum theoretical score of eight in an end, but that's nearly impossible. In reality, the scores are usually in the range of one to three, with three considered an excellent end.

Well, the United States laid the hammer down, and pulled in a score of five in the eighth end of the match with Norway. This is an almost unheard of score at an international level of competition. One comparrison I saw was like shooting a hole in one at a PGA event. Not only did they pull down the mythic five point end, but it brought the total score to 11-5, causing the defending champions to concede the match to the upstart Americans with two ends left to play.

In short? Just a masterful way to start the bonspiel, even if they did fall to Finland later in the day on a poorly curled last stone.

posted by thurdl @ 9:09 PM