Winter Olympics: who are the big guns on China’s curling team for Beijing 2022?
- China has only ever won one Olympic medal in curling, with women’s team taking bronze at Vancouver 2010
- Zhang Lijun and Han Yu will lead the charge in Beijing for the women, with Ma Xiuyue and Xu Jingtao to lead the men
The sport has been dominated by Canada, Sweden, and Great Britain, who have won six, three, and two Olympic gold medals respectively.
Competition for curling got under way at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics on Wednesday night, with China’s mixed doubles curling team delighting fans following a dramatic 7-6 victory over Pyeongchang silver medallists Switzerland.
Early Thursday morning China’s duo of Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi recorded their second win, defeating Australia 6-5 during the second session. They will now meet Sweden at the National Aquatics Centre at around 8pm Thursday night.
China took up curling roughly a decade after its introduction, with the Chinese curling team debuting at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. There, the Chinese women’s curling team won a bronze medal – the only medal in the history of Chinese curling.
The Chinese curling team’s Winter Olympic trials began in December. Based on the results and previous competitions, the current list of men’s, women’s and mixed doubles teams have been determined. Here are the highlights of each team:
Mixed Team
Fan Suyuan and Ling Zhi
Fan Suyuan is from Dunhua, a city in northeast China. At 15 she first competed in mixed curling doubles at the 2015 Winter Games in New Zealand, which had only been her second year of curling.
Ling Zhi is from Harbin and first represented China at the 2014 World Junior Curling Championships. In 2013 and 2014 he won back-to-back titles at the Pacific-Asia Junior Curling Championships. Fan and Ling are a newly formed pair; this will be the first season they are competing as a team. The pair previously had no international competition experience together.
Women’s curling team
Zhang Lijun
Born in 1996, in China’s northern city of Qitaihe, Zhang plays as lead of the women’s curling team and is a 2019 Asia-Pacific champion in the sport.
She took up curling when she was 15, after switching from short-track speedskating, to join her province’s team and receive professional training.
In 2019, as part of the Chinese women’s curling team, she won sixth place in the world championships and then won first place in the Asia-Pacific Curling Championships. Her professional success leading up to the games included winning 10th place in the 2021 World Championships, her second time competing.
Han Yu
The 21-year-old Han is the skipper of this year’s team and represented China at the 2019 World Junior Curling Championship.
Originally from Shandong province, Han moved to the capital city Beijing with her parents and took up curling when she was in middle school. She represented the country in the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games and won a silver medal in the mixed doubles event. After graduating from junior high school, she joined the Beijing team.
In 2019, she went to Canada to participate in the World Junior Curling Championships and won third place, and alongside Zhang Lijun, became champion of the Asian and Pacific Curling Championships held in Shenzhen. In 2021, she played in the world championship for the first time and finished 10th.
In the lead-up to the Games, Han told local media outlet Beijing News that the most important characteristic of her team is “mutual trust” in supporting one another, whether in life or in competition.
Men’s curling team
Ma Xiuyue
Born in 1991, Ma is a Chinese curler from Harbin. Before joining the men’s curling team, he won a bronze medal at the 2015 Asia-Pacific Curling Championships, where he was the alternate on the Chinese team.
Ma represented China twice at the World Junior Curling Championships in 2011 and 2012. On both occasions, his team finished with a 4–5 record. On an individual level, Ma won the 2011 and 2012 Asia-Pacific Junior Curling Championships.
Xu Jingtao
At 28 years of age, Xu is the youngest player on this year’s men’s curling team. The Harbin-born Xu plays lead on the Chinese National Men’s Curling Team, and formerly represented the men’s national team in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons.
Xu got his start in curling for the Chinese men’s team at the 2013 World Junior Curling Championships, and subsequently, at the 2015 Pacific-Asia Junior Curling Championships, picking up a silver medal.
After juniors, Wang joined the Chinese men’s national team in 2017, playing second for the team, and then as lead for the 2018–19 season, where they won a silver medal. Xu represented China at the 2019 Pacific-Asia Curling Championships, which they won.
