The Olympics

I have been meaning to blog on the subject of the Olympic curling and now it seems that it may be a little late as both GB teams are out of the competition. I predicted medals for both. They come home with none. Bear that in mind when reading my thoughts below. Do I really know anything at all?

It is a funny thing in curling but experienced curlers will often look back at a game in which they have played and be able to pick out the critical moment - the one where who was going to win was decided. And ususally both winners and losers will agree - which suggests there really is something phsychological about it. Last night GB contributed several candidates by way of missed stones (I wish Murdoch's team had been so accommodating when we played them at the Edinburgh International) but actually you expect there will be some misses - a 100% score for a player is very rare in a game - so the mere fact that a shot was missed does not make it that critical deciding stone. Last night the stone came late in the game - it was David Murdoch's first at the tenth end (at about 1 am in the morning GMT so you are forgiven if you missed it). GB had set up the end well and were lying one counter guarded. GB had last stone. Murdoch initially indicated he wanted essentially to draw behind the guard to prevent Sweden attempting a difficult hit on their own red with the running stone deflecting from the hit to remove the GB stone and lie behind the guard. If Murdoch made that shot then Sweden could not play the deflected hit and achieve the same result. They could either try the same shot but would likely remove only one GB stone leaving Murdoch a draw to the other side of the four foot ring for a two and so win the game. Alternatively Sweden could try a pressure draw around the other side themselves hoping to hide enough that Murdoch could not remove them. That one ranks in the "sounds good in theory but in reality there is almost always a hit left to remove it" category. But then the rest of the team, particularly Peter Smith, the second, intervened with various suggestions. A time out was called. David Hay the coach (and slayer of young Wilson school boy curling dreams many years ago but that was another time and another place) walked down. David is soft spoken at the best of time and with Shona's heavy breathing next to me (she was in that sleep state of drifting off and then denying she was sleeping) it was really not possible to hear what he did say. But what he should have said was - "guys, David is on 50% on take outs and 90% on draws - you have three shot options - two are draws, one is a take out. Today I recommend one of the draw options because this is not David's best day for striking". If he did say that he was ignored. They opted for a hit on the red which would have been Sweden's target but it was essential that they did not just hit it but also rolled in behind the guard. Now it is pretty hard on television to see why shots are not made perfectly - I have a suspicion that Murdoch has developed the tiniest of pushes as he releases on out turn strikes because over this last week a lot of his nearly mades have been on that line but as with most things I could be wrong and probably am - but Murdoch hit but did not roll. Sweden were left able to hit Murdoch's stone and if they got the angle correct use it to also remove the other GB stone in the house. They got the angle right. We will never know what the outcome would have been had Murdoch played either of the draw possibilities. What we can say is that based off his performance in this game there was a roughly 90% chance he would have made the shot and Sweden would have had to play a different and more difficult shot. To me what had been a great contest ebbing one way then the other was decided with that shot.

Another thing that struck me was that Sweden looked like they wanted it more. When they swept, they swept as if their life depended on it. The Murdoch team have far greater sophistication - they have studied sweeping so that they utilise different kinds of brushes to obtain slightly different effects, occasionally swapping the brushes between them. Yet in the basic art of keeping a stone that was drawing further than expected as straight as possible or in making a stone go further, they were second best to what the Swedes achieved. That should not be so.

When the Swedes were playing badly (as they did for three or four ends) the team (less so skip) looked visibly upset. In contrast the effect of experience on the Murdoch team seemed to be for them to show a small spark of emotion and then look nonchalent after a missed shot. Perhaps this is consistent with how Federer, for example, might react or perhaps there is a degree of suppression of true feeling in the same way a spouse might, in company, hide their irritation about some feature of their other half's behaviour but actually they really want to shout at the other half and express their true feelings. (Or maybe only I irritate my spouse that way). If it is the latter then maybe the idea that a curling team can be selected several years in advance of the competition and reasonably be expected to work together intensely for several years without the pressure eventually leading to small breakdowns in the team integrity may be wrong.

Had I been there and able to express a view (and immediately before Murdoch smacked me with a broom and challenged my credibility) I might have had Hay spend a little more time on releases - there was little consistency across the team - perhaps it was always so with this team but it surprises me; I would have had a long chat with Pete Smith - his interventions seemed to me to destabilise the team and his suggestions were nearly always for very aggresive and technically difficult shots - generally the higher a player's percentage is in a game will correlate not only to how well he is playing but also to how difficult are the shots he is being asked to play. Making a Murdoch who is not playing at his fabulous best play very difficult shots when there were easier alternatives is not sensible. Finally maybe I would have had them have a "no holds bar here is what I really think" session to clear the air. And then maybe not. You would have to have an incling as to what would be said to ensure it could be turned into a positive session before embarking down that route.



In the end all very disappointing. Particularly for the team. Despite appearances against Sweden the efforts this team have put in are only consistent with wanting to win Olympic medals very, very badly indeed. They will be hurting.