Curling’s ‘perfect game’ leaves U.S. in stunned frustration
In a sport known for its politeness, the sight of American curlers Matt and Becca Hamilton banging their brooms against the Olympic ice in frustration was a rarity. But so was the manner in which they lost.
Despite holding a 4-3 lead heading into the final end, or round, of its mixed doubles match Friday in Gangneung, South Korea, the U.S. lost 9-4 to reigning world champion Switzerland after the Swiss managed something exceedingly unusual in curling: a perfect score known as a six-ender.
How rare is a six-ender? Think perfect game in baseball.
Mixed doubles curling, making its Olympic debut, has rules different from standard curling. Each team has two players, a man and a woman, as opposed to four. There are eight ends instead of 10. And each team throws six rocks in each end instead of eight.
Although Switzerland was behind by one point going into the final end, Jenny Perret and Martin Rios had an advantage known as the hammer — the right to throw the final stone of the game. They managed to get their first five stones into the house, putting the Americans in a precarious position.
Becca Hamilton threw her final rock, which needed to get to the button — the center of the bull’s-eye target — to preserve their lead.
It was not to be. The stone ended up a few inches past its target, prompting the disappointed siblings to slam their brooms against the ice. Switzerland promptly knocked the Americans’ lone rock out of the house and kept all six of their stones within the rings, giving them that rare and coveted six-ender.
Rios laughed when asked if he aware his team had set a record for perfect curling score at the Games.
“We wanted to win the game, and that’s it,” he said.
Despite the rough loss, were gracious in defeat.
“They’re a good team,” Matt Hamilton said. “They’re defending world champs, so hats off to them. They made more shots.”
The Hamiltons had another tough game during the afternoon round robin, conceding in the sixth end to South Korea after falling behind 9-1. the of was first Hamiltons
I-Pod won’t charge: Olympic halfpipe champion Iouri Podladtchikov won’t defend his title due to injuries suffered last month at the Winter X Games.
The gold medalist, known as I-Pod, practiced Friday but then said it would be “totally unreasonable” to compete.
Podladtchikov took a nasty fall on his final jump at the X Games, banging his face against the bottom of the pipe. He was motionless for more than 10 minutes.
He spent the night in the hospital and was diagnosed with a broken nose. But Podladtchikov said his health “remains far too unstable to allow me to compete at the level of Olympic competition.”
That cuts the list of prime contenders in one of the premier Olympic events to three: two-time gold medalist Shaun White, 2014 silver medalist Ayumu Hirano and Australia’s Scotty James.
Double standards? The lower house of the Russian parliament issued a statement protesting the ban of 45 athletes over a doping scheme at the 2014 Games.
The State Duma deplored the verdict as a reflection of “crude pressure and political struggle in a sports field defying Olympic principles. Double standards ... hurt the international Olympic movement.”