In a historic achievement for Jamaican winter sports activities, the ladies’s curling crew clinched a exceptional silver medal on the World Curling Federation’s Pan Continental Championships, held in Kelowna, Canada, just lately.
This triumph not solely marked a major milestone for the crew but additionally drew parallels with Jamaica’s iconic bobsled crew, making an enduring impression on the aggressive winter sports activities panorama.
Curling, a winter sport with its origins courting again to early sixteenth century Scotland, includes two competing groups, every comprising 4 gamers. The target is to slip heavy, polished granite stones on a sheet of ice towards a goal space divided into concentric circles. With eight stones per crew, every participant throws two, aiming to position them closest to the middle of the marked space.
The crew with the best rating emerges victorious. “Sweepers,” two gamers with brooms, accompany the sliding stone, lowering friction and influencing its path. Curling has been part of the Winter Olympics since 1998, that includes males’s, girls’s, and combined doubles tournaments.
Entry into the World Curling Federation in 2022
Jamaica’s entry into the World Curling Federation in 2022 marked a transformative second for the nation on the planet of curling. Very like the surprising rise of Jamaica’s bobsled crew three a long time in the past, the curling crew carved out a platform for showcasing their prowess within the sport. The journey started when Ben Kong, the founder and former president of Curling Jamaica, approached veteran roller Cristiene Corridor-Teravainen.
On the helm of Jamaica’s girls’s curling crew is Corridor-Teravainen, an skilled roller who moved to Toronto, Canada, on the age of six and was launched to the game within the Eighties by her husband. Serving because the vice-president of Curling Jamaica, Corridor-Teravainen performed a pivotal position in nurturing Jamaica’s curling expertise and fostering its growth.
Securing the silver medal on the World Curling Federation’s Pan Continental Championships serves as a strong motivator for the Jamaican crew, illustrating that goals could be realized by unwavering dedication and keenness. In a hard-fought ultimate match towards the formidable Crew China led by Han Yu, which secured the gold medal, Jamaica’s curlers, together with Madeleine Spurgeon, Stephanie Chen, Margot Shepherd-Spurgeon, and Corridor-Teravainen, emerged with an everlasting sense of delight of their historic accomplishment.
