Beijing, China, February 11, 2022: A rock-solid defence led China’s men’s curling team to their first victory of the Winter Olympics on Friday morning.
Leading Denmark 5-4 after eight of the 10 ends, China went into full defence mode to prevent the Danes from getting back into the match over the final two ends.
The Chinese team, under skip Ma Xiuyue, performed clinical take-outs of the well-positioned Danish stones on the last two ends, which both finished 0-0, and China held on to win 5-4.
This was their first victory in the 10-team round robin competition at the National Aquatics Centre, which has been transformed from the Water Cube for the Beijing 2008 Olympics into the Ice Cube for the Beijing 2022 Olympics.
The Chinese players themselves remained as cold as ice in those final two tension-filled ends, and improved their win-loss record to 1-2 after defeats by Sweden (6-4) and the Russian Olympic Committee (7-4) on the first two days of competition.
“I am very happy because, after all our hard work, we can finally get that first victory today,” said team member Wang Zhiyu.
“After losing the first two rounds we felt a little bit nervous but we adjusted our competition state and changed our strategy to try and control the game.”
With only the top four teams going through to the semi-finals on Thursday, February 17, Wang knows there is still a long way to go for China to catch up with the leaders.
“We haven’t really thought about going into the semi-finals just yet. All we can do is just try to win our next game and keep going. Then we will see what happens,” he said.
The Chinese team, who have been training together for six months before the Olympics, never trailed against Denmark.
They led 1-0 after the first end, 2-1 after the third, 4-2 after the fifth and 5-3 after the seventh. When Denmark took the eighth end 1-0 to close the gap to 5-4, China shut them out over the last two ends to protect that one-point lead and win their first match.
Photo: Inside the Ice Cube – curling venue for the Winter Olympics (Photo: OCA)