What to know about curling, the popular Olympic sport with an Italian star seeking more gold at home

By Canadian Press on January 5, 2026.

Curling dates to the 1700s and was among the handful of sports at the first Winter Olympics in 1924.

It didn’t return until the 1998 Games with both men’s and women’s competition. It has grown in popularity and size: Curling will be the first sport to open competition, two days before the opening ceremony for the Milan Cortina Games in February.

How it works

In a curling match, two teams compete to see which can get the most granite stones closest to a bullseye target called the tee by sliding it on a narrow sheet of ice. The distance between where a player must release the stone and the tee at the other end is about 93 feet (28 meters). The sheet is only 5 meters or 16.4 feet wide and it shares stones for each team every round so it gets crowded.

Each round, for up to 10 rounds, teams have eight chances to slide the specialized 44-pound (20 kg) stones toward the tee. They can aim directly for the center, try to knock their opponents’ stones away or nudge their own stones closer to the target. Strategies include blocking and takeouts.

Each throw involves all four teammates. One slides the stone, using a handle to make it curl, while others sweep the ice as the stone moves, altering its speed and direction. Team captains, called skips, advise on strategy. Whichever team gets consistently closest to the target wins the match.

Terms to know; The house (the overall scoring area, centered by the tee); Ends, which are similar to an inning in baseball in that each team shoots eight rocks (two per person) or 16 total; the hammer, or the last stone of an end; the hog line, which is when a player must release their stone (21 feet from the tee); and pebbling, the droplets of ice on the sheet that impact the speed of the stone.

Who to watch

Canadian Brad Jacobs is making his second Olympic appearance after leading Canada to gold at the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi. Standout Bruce Mouat of the United Kingdom will compete in two events in Cortina, mixed doubles and the men’s championship.

The Swedes are the defending Olympic men’s champion. On the women’s side, the U.K. is the defending women’s champion but Sweden and Canada are among the favorites.

The U.S. will be represented in all three curling disciplines. Daniel Casper will lead the men’s team, Tabitha Peterson the women’s and Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin will be in mixed doubles.

Venues and dates

All matches will take place at the Cortina curling stadium, with competition beginning Feb. 4. The mixed doubles final is Feb. 10, men’s semifinals Feb. 19 and the final Feb. 21 while the women’s semis are Feb. 20 and the final Feb. 22.

Memorable moments

The Canadian men had won gold for three straight Olympics (2006, 2010 and 2014) before the Americans led by skip John Shuster grabbed headlines by upsetting Sweden to win the U.S. its first Olympic gold in curling.

Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner won mixed doubles in 2022, giving Italy its first Olympic curling championship. Constantini is from Cortina, so she and Mosaner will draw huge crowds as they try to win gold at home.

Fun facts

An average curling match takes three hours, according to World Curling. Mixed doubles at Cortina will see two married couples and one sibling team face off. Canadian couple Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant will compete against Yannick Schwaller and Briar Schwaller-Hürlimann of Switzerland. Swedish siblings Rasmus Wranå and Isabella Wranå will also compete as a team.

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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Julia Frankel, The Associated Press