A mens and womens curling team? Why not just a curling team? I can't think of a single advantage one sex has over another in this sport. There's dozens of sports like this, but for obvious reasons curling is a hot topic in this country right now. Isn't it about time we started unifying sports when gender provides no advantage.
Men have naturally better hand eye co-ordination and can chuck a stone harder if they need to clear stuff out I guess
I seriously doubt either of those is true, or that the second point gives any advantage at all even if it is. I'm not a curling expert by any stretch of the imagination, but after watching the winter Olympics since John Curry and Robin Cousins brought back medals, I've never once seen someone throw a curling stone down the ice as hard as they possibly could.
I don't think power is much of an advantage, if at all. There isn't a woman in the sport who hasn't the strength to clear the lot if she so wished. It's a game of skill.
Power is no advantage whatsoever, at least when it comes to throwing the stones. I tried playing last year and actually getting the stone to stop in vaguely the right area is hugely tricky. Not hard enough and your stone literally moves about three or four metres and stops. Just a touch harder and it zips along the ice at 200mph and whacks the boards at the end. I reckon power might make a bit of difference when scrubbing through. That's absolutely knackering!
Thank you for that, it was interesting, but also some of the most sexist rubbish I've ever had the mispleasure of reading.
Yes I'm not sure how reliable it was or how true it actually is. The bit about the men seeing ahead of the women just doesn't sound right at all. Maybe in a small survey yes but overall? I just can't see it. Power is quite interesting because yeah sure the men will be more powerful but is there any advantage of launching it at 6000 miles an hour if a shot at 10 miles an hour can clear all the stones anyway?
That's stamina though isn't it, rather than power, and I think we've long since dispelled the belief that women have no stamina. Paula Radcliffe could beat 99.999% of men over 26 miles after having a baby and stopping for a wee.
I liked the article you linked to in that at least it addressed the issue, but then it just took the opinion of men, who, and who would have guessed this, thought men were intrinsically better than women.
I don't think anyone is throwing them down at full pelt for such shots, actually, not even 10‰. Yes, it's faster than usual but still completely controlled.
Well I think all women who are curling at this level have more than enough power to make these shots, and that they take at least 80% of what they're capable of off it, but if you think they're not capable, maybe have a word with them to get some more training done.
Why so anti women? They're the only gold medalists for GB this Olympics. If you watch the curling you can see the difference in power of shots.
It’s weird which sports don’t separate the sexes. Equestrian events where there’s almost certainly a power advantage, motorsport (where the infrastructure to get women sponsorship needs a lot of work). But bowling of all kinds, darts, cue sports all split by sex. I can’t think of a good reason.
