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Patrick Blennerhassett

While curling has long been dominated by Nordic countries such as Canada, Sweden and Finland, the game has gone global as of late and expanded its cultural reach. China and curling sound like strange bedfellows, however the country’s women’s team has a legitimate chance to win a medal at Beijing 2022.
The squad was recently announced 21-year-old curling sensation Han Yu named at skip, leading a foursome that also features Zong Ziqi, Zhang Lijun, Jiang Xindi and alternate Yan Hui.
These five recently competed at the 2021 World Championships in Canada where the team went a respectable 6-7 to put them 10th out of 14th.
While this might not seem like an impressive record, a bit of context will give Chinese curling fans hope these women could sweep their way on to the podium come February in Beijing. The average age of the squad is 23 and China have signalled they are ready to usher in a new era of women’s curling on home soil.

Two of the squad’s victories at the World Championships were quite impressive: a 5-2 win over 2018 Olympic bronze medallists Japan (led by skip Satsuki Fujisawa), a 7-6 win over Scotland’s Eve Muirhead and her team, plus a 7-5 victory over the defending Olympic champions from Sweden, who are skipped by Anna Hasselborg.
China will get to face all three of these opponents at Beijing 2022 as they kick off their group play on February 10 against Denmark at the Beijing National Aquatics Centre, which has been converted into a Winter Games venue for the Olympics.
Pull back for more context and the future looks even brighter, as the Chinese women’s team narrowly missed the play-off round at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and ended up fifth overall.


China’s top curler of all-time, Wang Bingyu, nicknamed “Betty”, has since retired, however she has paved the way to potential victory as she claimed China’s first medal at the World Championships, a silver, in 2008, before capturing gold a year later, and bronze two years after that.
Han will be following in the footsteps of Wang and appears ready to take the mantle and lead the next generation of female Chinese curlers. Han made her international debut at the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Norway, where she took silver on a mixed doubles team.

Two years after that she led China to a fourth place at the 2019 World Juniors, and less than a year after that won the Pacific-Asia Championships.
Her selection along with her squad came after a six-leg match series that was hosted on the mainland between four teams (two prospects teams and two challenger teams), a way to simulate a tournament atmosphere because coronavirus travel restrictions meant they could not take part in overseas competitions.
This has been a bit of a switch for the Chinese curling teams because before Covid-19 hit, the squads normally trained out of Canada where they also competed. Canada has long been a curling powerhouse.

China also has a secret weapon in some expert foreign coaching. In 2019 China hired three-time world champion skip Peja Lindholm from Sweden and Italian Marco Mariani to helm their men’s and women’s teams respectively with Lindholm also overseeing the entire programme.
Lindholm became a world champion with Sweden in 1997, 2001 and 2004 and also coached his countrymen to gold in 2018 in South Korea.
The 51-year-old Lindholm said he had big plans for the team’s heading into Beijing.
“I do feel an advantage being the host at the Olympics and also some pressure,” he said to WorldCurling.com in an interview. “But I think the pressure is good because that motivates us even more and also makes sure we work carefully with all details in the preparations. Historically all hosts at the Olympics have benefits and I think China will also have that.”
At the World Championships, China’s men and women have won 11 medals: two gold, three silver and seven bronze, as well as Paralympic gold in 2018 and Olympic bronze in 2020 in Vancouver. Beijing 2022 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Chinese Curling Association.


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Sport

China

Chinese curling reached a high water mark in 2010 when the women’s team won bronze at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, led by Wang Bingyu
A new generation of curlers has emerged and China will send a youthful squad to compete against the best in the world in Beijing


Led by skip Han Yu, China’s women’s curling team are in striking range of a medal at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.


Nordic nations