Paralympic curling.
It was an absolutely thrilling conclusion to the Paralympic wheelchair curling tournament. With the score tied, after several amazing shots by both teams, a situation arose that was a combination of everything one could imagine in sports. There was only one stone left to play, to be delivered by Canadian skip Mark Ideson. But neither the Chinese nor the Canadian team knew whether the winning Canadian stone was already in the house. Only we—the commentators and TV viewers—knew. Unlike the players, we had access to footage from the overhead camera, which clearly showed that the yellow Canadian stone was definitely a few centimeters closer to the center of the house. So Canada didn’t have to play; they could have moved the stone to the side line, just as the Chinese could have shaken hands and congratulated the winner. But no one on the ice was sure what the situation really was. Confusion ensued. At first I didn’t realize it, but later I came to understand that the difference between wheelchair curling and curling for able-bodied players isn’t just that one group uses a broom and the other doesn’t, but also that the movement of people in wheelchairs around the circle—and in thethe house is complex, time-consuming, and does not allow for easy visual monitoring of the stones’ positions. In short, there is no way to easily move from one stone to another and know which is closer to the center. Moreover, moving in a wheelchair between the stones in the circle carries a huge risk of coming into contact with a standing stone, and subsequently returning the stone to its original position could be a problem. All of this wouldn’t involve such an unreasonable level of tension if the time factor weren’t added to the mix. Ideson had one minute left to throw and still didn’t know whether to risk a regular throw and potentially hand the win to China with a mistake, or whether to simply rely on Jon Thurston’s vague call from the other end of the sheet: “We’re probably better, but I’d play a short move,” and not throw. Mark ultimately had two seconds left on the clock, and the Canadian stone set off. He had already moved his own winning stone a bit closer to the center earlier, and it was all over. The evenly matched and, for the most part, high-quality match had its winner. The gold medals go to Canada, the silver to China, and the bronze to Sweden.