Curling at “WinterOlympics100“

For the past few weeks the International Olympic Committee has been celebrating #WinterOlympics100, the centenary of the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924.

Over 10 days in the French alps, the town of Chamonix hosted athletes from 16 nations.

The event was initially an extension of that summer’s Olympic Games in Paris, and was known as the “Winter Sports Week of the VIII Olympiad.“ In 1926, it was retroactively recognized as the first edition of the Olympic Winter Games.

In 2006, just days before the start of the Olympic Winter Games in Turin—won by Sweden’s Anette Norberg and Canada’s Brad Gushue—the IOC announced that the curling tournament at Chamonix 1824 was not a demonstration event after all, but rather the official Olympic medal status debut of the sport.

The IOC was prompted to rush to this decision by a series of published stories from a Scottish newspaper, which were followed by inquiries by ye olde The Curling News. Once the IOC made their decision, we contacted a flabbergasted World Curling Federation—which hadn’t heard a thing about it.

If you’re interested in that tale, you can read it in three parts beginning here, and then here, and finally here.

At Chamonix, curling was contested between three nations: hosts France, Great Britain and Sweden. A fourth country, Switzerland, dropped out just before the Games which forced the competition to push the schedule along by a day, i.e. Jan. 28-30.

The matches were held outdoors with the house rings scraped into the ice. Game duration is presumed to have been 18 ends, which makes sense when you see some of the scorelines.

This is how the results were recorded in an official French Olympic report.

Two points were awarded for a win and one point for a draw. As such, Great Britain won the gold with four points after the single round robin, Sweden won silver with two points and France, with no points, was awarded the bronze.

This image of Team GB skip Willie Jackson is one of the more famous images of that curling championship. The photographer is unknown.

This image, below, is from a 34-minute IOC film of the Games, showing the Great Britain players marching through the streets of Chamonix on their way to the opening ceremonies.

According to the excellent and now retired Curling History Blog, each team member is wearing two curling stone handles, plus bolts and washers, around his neck (and under the jacket lapels).

This Associated press clipping confirms that each competitor brought his own curling stone to the competition.

In the case of the unnamed Scotsman quoted in the story, he argued with baffled French customs officials before being forced to pay a tariff for bringing “a precious stone” into the country.

Earlier this month, Scotland marked the centenary of their golden victory with a bonspiel in Edinburgh. 

Fourteen teams took part and there were appearances by the relatives of the championship Jackson team, as well as all four members of Rhona Howie’s 2002 Olympic women’s winners from Salt Lake City.

There were also celebrations in France, of course. Witness the really large cake unveiled in Chamonix.

Jan. 30 marked the final day of that original competition. Great Britain’s Scots defeated France 46-4 and the medal ceremony was held, which brought the Roaring Game’s first Olympic venture to a close.

Indeed, how curling’s times have changed.