Is Curling Truly A Sport?

Well the Olympics are upon us now and we get to see Team USA go out and compete in a bunch of different sports. One sport that seems to get a lot of discussion on if it should even be in the Olympics is curling. I think you can make just as much of an argument for curling being a sport as you can high diving. Now I know I raised some eye brows with that comment, but think about the physical use of the body in each sport. To dive off a high board it doesn’t take a lot of strength, it takes a lot of skill and know how to control your body. Sure there is a lot of flexibility required for some dives as well, but if you see how these throwers for curling sit when they toss the stone, they have to be flexible as well. Plus I noticed there wasn’t 1 truly overweight competitor so far on any of the curling teams. You try sweeping a broom back and forth as fast as they do and see if you don’t stay fit. Plus as they move down the ice they are not allowed to touch any of the other stones that have already been played. That alone takes a lot of skill and coordination. Sure it might be a skillful sport and doesn’t use a lot of physical prowess, but it is still a sport. I mean if we can call golf a sport and have people like John Daily playing it, then we have to call curling a sport.

Curling is about as much of a sport as NASCAR. This game is just a large version of shuffle board and it happens to be played on ice. Sure it takes some skill and hand eye coordination, but so do video games and chess. We don’t call either of them sports. The only reason none of the competitors in the Olympics are truly overweight is because no country wants to be represented by some hefty guy who passes out as he quickly sweeps his broom. Sure sweeping the broom might be physical, but not all of the team members do this. Plus it’s not like they sweep the broom the whole time, it is for short bursts. Jumping off of the high dive actually does take some strength. In order to spin your body fast enough to do enough twirls or flips to get a good score you have to have quite a bit of strength. Even ribbon gymnastics has more strength and physical ability required than curling. Curling has been the topic of discussion every 4 years when the Olympic Committee talks about sports to remove and sports to add. Curling has so close to being removed numerous times because it isn’t a sport. I’m amazed it has the following it does, because it is slow and boring. There is just no way to call this game a sport.