A Celebration on Ice and Snow, Beijing 2022: Para Ice Hockey

Wheelchair curling is an adaptation of curling, designed for athletes with a lower-extremity disability. Wheelchair curling uses almost the same rules as curling except that there is no sweeping. Curlers must deliver a shot in their wheelchairs, using their arms or a delivery stick. Each of the two competing teams has four players including at least one female curler.

Each game consists of eight ends, and each curler gets two chances to deliver stones per end, totalling eight stones per team. Once all 16 stones are delivered in an end, the team with the closest stone to the tee scores a point. More points are given if two or more stones are closest. At the end of a game, the team with the most points wins.

Wheelchair curling became an official event at the Paralympic Winter Games in 2006, and has been one of the fastest-growing. In 2018, the Chinese wheelchair curling team won the country’s first-ever Paralympic Winter Games gold medal at the Pyeongchang Paralympic Winter Games.

Copyright: the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022– A Celebration on Ice and Snow, translated by Xing Yutang

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