appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Cat Wang

Mia Castagnone

Since curling became an official sport at the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, the complex game of “chess on ice” has become a staple of the Games.
The sport has been dominated by Canada, Sweden, and Great Britain, who have won six, three, and two Olympic gold medals respectively.
Competition for curling got under way at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on Wednesday night, with China’s mixed doubles curling team delighting fans following a dramatic 7-6 victory over Pyeongchang silver medallists Switzerland.
Early Thursday morning China’s duo of Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi recorded their second win, defeating Australia 6-5 during the second session. They will now meet Sweden at the National Aquatics Centre at around 8pm Thursday night.

China took up curling roughly a decade after its introduction, with the Chinese curling team debuting at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. There, the Chinese women’s curling team won a bronze medal – the only medal in the history of Chinese curling.
The Chinese curling team’s Winter Olympic trials began in December. Based on the results and previous competitions, the current list of men’s, women’s and mixed doubles teams have been determined. Here are the highlights of each team:
Mixed Team
Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi

Fan Suyuan is from Dunhua, a city in northeast China. At 15 she first competed in mixed curling doubles at the 2015 Winter Games in New Zealand, which had only been her second year of curling.
Ling Zhi is from Harbin and first represented China at the 2014 World Junior Curling Championships. In 2013 and 2014 he won back-to-back titles at the Pacific-Asia Junior Curling Championships. Fan and Ling are a newly formed pair; this will be the first season they are competing as a team. The pair previously had no international competition experience together.
Women’s curling team
Zhang Lijun
Born in 1996, in China’s northern city of Qitaihe, Zhang plays as lead of the women’s curling team and is a 2019 Asia-Pacific champion in the sport.
She took up curling when she was 15, after switching from short-track speedskating, to join her province’s team and receive professional training.
In 2019, as part of the Chinese women’s curling team, she won sixth place in the world championships and then won first place in the Asia-Pacific Curling Championships. Her professional success leading up to the games included winning 10th place in the 2021 World Championships, her second time competing.

The sporting action picks up today!

What will you be watching? 🤔#Beijing2022
— Olympics (@Olympics) February 3, 2022

Han Yu
The 21-year-old Han is the skipper of this year’s team and represented China at the 2019 World Junior Curling Championship.
Originally from Shandong province, Han moved to the capital city Beijing with her parents and took up curling when she was in middle school. She represented the country in the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games and won a silver medal in the mixed doubles event. After graduating from junior high school, she joined the Beijing team.
In 2019, she went to Canada to participate in the World Junior Curling Championships and won third place, and alongside Zhang Lijun, became champion of the Asian and Pacific Curling Championships held in Shenzhen. In 2021, she played in the world championship for the first time and finished 10th.
In the lead-up to the Games, Han told local media outlet Beijing News that the most important characteristic of her team is “mutual trust” in supporting one another, whether in life or in competition.

Men’s curling team
Ma Xiuyue
Born in 1991, Ma is a Chinese curler from Harbin. Before joining the men’s curling team, he won a bronze medal at the 2015 Asia-Pacific Curling Championships, where he was the alternate on the Chinese team.
Ma represented China twice at the World Junior Curling Championships in 2011 and 2012. On both occasions, his team finished with a 4–5 record. On an individual level, Ma won the 2011 and 2012 Asia-Pacific Junior Curling Championships.
Xu Jingtao
At 28 years of age, Xu is the youngest player on this year’s men’s curling team. The Harbin-born Xu plays lead on the Chinese National Men’s Curling Team, and formerly represented the men’s national team in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.
Xu got his start in curling for the Chinese men’s team at the 2013 World Junior Curling Championships, and subsequently, at the 2015 Pacific-Asia Junior Curling Championships, picking up a silver medal.
After juniors, Wang joined the Chinese men’s national team in 2017, playing second for the team, and then as lead for the 2018–19 season, where they won a silver medal. Xu represented China at the 2019 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships, which they won.


Meet Olympic figure skating champion Alysa Liu’s transgender sibling Jaylin

Meet Liu Shaoang and Shaolin Sándor Liu, the Olympic gold skaters who made their runway debut

Switzerland fire ice hockey coach who entered China on false Covid-19 vaccine certificate

Ice hockey coach admits using false Covid-19 vaccine certificate to enter China for Olympics

Beijing Winter Olympics 2022

Winter Olympics: who are the big guns on China’s curling team for Beijing 2022?

China’s Fan Suyuan (right) and Ling Zhi compete during the curling mixed doubles round robin session of the Winter Olympics. Photo: Xinhua

Ling Zhi (left) and Fan Suyuan of China on their way to a 6-5 win over Australia. Photo: Reuters 

Fan Suyuan (left) and Zhi Ling compete during the curling mixed doubles round robin matches between China and Switzerland. Photo: EPA-EFE

Curling mixed doubles gets the competition under way for the Beijing Winter Olympics at the National Aquatics Centre. Photo: Xinhua

Winter Olympics: Fila designer’s pride at working on Hong Kong uniforms, calls it ‘more meaningful than Milan Fashion Week collection’

Hong Kong speed skater Sidney Chu and coach Sun Dandan seen here during a practice session in Beijing wearing tracksuits supplied by Fila. Photo: FILA

Hong Kong speed skater Sidney Chu is put through his paces in Beijing. Photo: Fila

Winter Olympics: torch relay begins 3-day trek past iconic Beijing landmarks

Luo Zhihuan, China’s first winter sports champion, was the first torch-bearer on the three-day trek through Beijing. Photo: Xinhua

Torch-bearers Yao Ming (left) and Zhang Juanjuan at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Torch Relay. Photo: Xinhua

Winter Olympics: what is curling? How ‘chess on ice’ works, where it came from, and why there’s so much sweeping

Second Kim Seonyeong and lead Kim Yeongmi of South Korea sweep during their match against Japan at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games. Photo: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton

Lead Valentin Tanner and third Claudio Paetz of Switzerland sweep as skip Peter de Cruz and vice-skip Marc Kennedy look on at the 2018 Winter Games. Photo: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton

Vice-skip Kim Kyeong-ae of South Korea shouts to her teammates. Photo: Reuters/Cathal McNaughton

From left, Team Peterson’s Tara Peterson and Nina Roth sweep to curl the rock thrown by Becca Hamilton while competing against Team Christensen during the second night of finals at the US Olympic Curling Team Trials at Baxter Arena in Omaha, Nebraska, on November 20, 2021. Photo: AP/Rebecca S. Gratz

Russia’s Aleksandr Krushelnitckii during a training session at the Gangneung Curling Centre during the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Games. Photo: EPA-EFE

Canada’s John Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes compete during the curling mixed doubles gold medal game against Switzerland at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games. Photo: AFP

Winter Olympics: IOC hopes for 30-50 per cent spectator capacity at venues as organisers invite Beijing-based Chinese nationals and foreigners to watch the Games

Staff members pose for a group photo with a Beijing 2022 Olympics display on the Olympic Green near the main media centre. Photo: AP

International Olympic Committee Executive Director Christophe Dubi. Photo: Handout

A volunteer wearing a face mask and shield stands under the Olympics Rings at the National Aquatics Centre. Photo: Reuters

Swedish skiers train at the National Cross-Country Skiing Centre in Zhangjiakou. Photo: Xinhua

Winter Olympics: from Miracle on Ice to Sidney Crosby and Japan’s Kazuyoshi Funaki, what are some of the top moments on home soil?

South Korean and North Korean members of the unified Korean team talk after their 8-0 loss to Switzerland in a women’s preliminary round ice hockey game during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Photo: Kyodo

A ragtag American team, welded together by coach Herb Brooks, pull off what has become known as the Miracle on Ice at the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid in 1980. Photo: AP

Sidney Crosby after scoring Canada’s “golden goal” at the 2010 Olympics. Photo: AFP 

Sport

China

Beijing Winter Games 2022

Profiles


China has only ever won one Olympic medal in curling, with women’s team taking bronze at Vancouver 2010
Zhang Lijun and Han Yu will lead the charge in Beijing for the women, with Ma Xiuyue and Xu Jingtao to lead the men



China will look to win just its second ever Winter Olympics medal in curling this month.
