ICE QUEEN COMETH
Russian skip’s sex appeal rocking the house in Sochi
SOCHI, Russia
Anna Sidorova is a 23-yearold resident of Moscow who was a figure skater until a leg injury nudged her into curling. The sport is something of a foreign curiosity to many Russians, but Sidorova has still found fame as an Olympian and, as one teammate said on Monday, as “the beautiful lady on the ice.”
Sidorova and her rink were the unquestioned stars when the women’s draw opened inside the Ice Cube Curling Centre.
The almost exclusively Russian crowd did not always know when to cheer — it roared when the opposing team, Denmark, made mistakes, which is a serious breach of curling etiquette — but it made a fantastic noise.
Most of it was appreciated, some was not.
“We want more serious attitudes toward us,” said Ekaterina Galkina, the Russian team’s lead. “Even today, there were a couple of comments from the stands like, ‘you look good girls.’ OK, so what? I mean, this has nothing to do with the game or with the athletes or sportsmanship at all.”
Sidorova, the skip, won the European championship two years ago
‘We want more serious attitudes toward us. Even today, there were a couple of comments from the stands like, ‘you look good girls.’ OK, so what? I mean, this has nothing to do with the game or with the athletes or sportsmanship at all.’
EKATERINA GALKINA, THE RUSSIAN TEAM’S LEAD
in Sweden. She was a member of the Russian team in Vancouver four years ago, and led her team to a 7-4 win to open the event at the Sochi Olympics on Monday.
In a country that has never placed higher than sixth at the Olympics, though, some of her fame stems from activity off the ice. Sidorova posed in lingerie, holding a curling broom in one photo, and poised over a curling stone in another well-circulated image online.
Galkina has appeared in a Russian version of Maxim magazine, with lingerie and curling as the theme. Some of the photographs are not suitable for viewing at work.
As high-level curling moves farther from its roots as a primarily social endeavour, where cigarettes and beer were as important as strategy sessions, the notion of sex appeal is not a foreign concept.
John Morris, a Canadian curler who also works as a firefighter, posed topless for a calendar last year, looking more like a football player than a curler.
“First of all, she’s an athlete,” Galkina said of Sidorova. “That’s what we’re trying to bring to the people: ‘You’re a nice girl, but first of all, you’re an athlete.’”
Sidorova said she has been curling for nine years.
On Monday, she made an audacious shot to clear out the last threatening Danish stones in the 10th end, where the margin for error was high. She hit the shot.
“Of course, every team that comes to the Olympic Games, they want to win this event,” Sidorova said. “I don’t know any other sportsmen who would just want to be there, to be part of it. Of course, we want to win.”
The Russian crowd could help. Three other games were being played while the Russians were winning on Sheet D — including Jennifer Jones, who led Canada to a 9-2 win over China — and curlers spoke of having to use hand signals to communicate over the noise.
Colleen Jones, the six-time Canadian women’s champion in Sochi as a reporter working with the CBC, said the crowd reminded her of the crowds at the Vancouver Olympics, four years ago. More than once on Monday, the crowd had to wait for a score to flash on the screen to know for sure whether what had just happened was good, or bad.
“They want to cheer, they want to go crazy,” Jones said.
“They are totally cheering at the wrong time. They’re cheering for mistakes, they’re cheering for blank ends. Earlier this morning, the Russian men went to blank the end — and made it — and they were like, ‘Oooh,’ like it was a disappointment.
“So they don’t quite get the game, but gosh, they’re here. They’ve got their flags, they’re making a lot of noise. It’s awesome.”
A lot of the noise in Vancouver four years ago was also tied to the sex appeal of a curler representing the host nation. Cheryl Bernard, the Canadian skip, became an international star, with the New York Times describing her as “a Sandra Bullock look-alike” who was making the sport “not just acceptable but sexy.”
Canada won the silver medal in Vancouver. On Monday, Galkina was asked about the idea that, if Russia continues to win, Sidorova might follow in those footsteps.
“I hope it will be better than Cheryl Bernard,” Galkina said with a laugh. “She was only second.”