Olympic History on Ice

Curling is a sport that's usually associated with cold places, like Scotland, Canada or New Zealand. So, just how did Australia, the driest inhabited continent on Earth, manage to produce an Olympic-qualifying curling team?  

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Curling is a sport for cold places like Scotland, Canada
and New Zealand, where it snows in the winter and
the rivers freeze over. So just how did Australia, the
driest inhabited continent on Earth and with no dedicated curling
facilities end up with an Olympic qualifying curling team. Hi,

(00:32):
I'm Tony Armstrong. Welcome to the ballroom where we celebrate
the winners, losers, and the weird stuff between. If you

(00:56):
haven't heard of curling, you're not alone. It's a decided
weird sport, an ancient game that somehow made it into
the modern world relatively untouched. I'm not going to go
too deep into the rules here, because, believe me, it's
surprisingly complicated. What you need to know is that it's
played on ice by teams of either two or four people.

(01:17):
They take turns to slide a heavy, polished granite stone
along the ice towards a target. At the same time,
their other team members sweep the ice in front of
the stone using actual brooms. It might sound a little strange,
but make no mistake, this game requires a lot of
skill and strategy, so much so that it's often referred

(01:38):
to as chess on ice, the best players exhibit a
captivating combination of balance, coordination and grace, and a healthy
understanding of physics. Hugh Millikin is a curling champion, the
vice president of the World Curling Federation, and, as you
might have guessed, a lifelong passionate proponent of the sport.

(02:01):
So when he moved to Australia from Canada, he was
shocked to discover there were no dedicated curling facilities in
the entire country, but he didn't let that deter him.
Soon after arriving, Hugh helped establish the first Australian curling
team in the early nineties and became their skipper, the

(02:23):
team's captain. Fast forward to two thousand and eight. At
the World Men's Curling Championship, the Aussies broke a record,
winning five out of six games. At the time, this
was the most wins ever for an Australian team. It
also meant they found themselves in the running for something
that until that point had seemed a far away dream,

(02:45):
the opportunity to qualify for the twenty ten Winter Olympics.
This was huge. The Australian team had worked towards this
goal for years, but it had always seemed so unlikely
at the time. There are an estimated three hundred curlers
in Australia, compare that to Canada's one million. The Aussie

(03:08):
team saw this as an opportunity to raise the sports
profile at home and let the world know that Australian
curlers were serious contenders. They enlisted the coaching services of
Earl Morris, a champion Canadian curler, but without dedicated training
facilities in Australia, they were forced to travel. When they

(03:29):
could afford it, They'd fly to Canada to train. Other times,
New Zealand provided a cheaper option a little closer to home.
Despite these challenges, things were looking promising. Practice was going
well and they were improving. Because of Hugh Milliken and
his team's unrelenting dedication, Australia had gone from having a
non existent curling team to being within reach of competing

(03:52):
on the world stage. But then six months out from
the qualifying round, disaster ruck. All of their curling equipment
was stolen, including fifty eight stones, costing an estimated twenty
three thousand dollars for a small team playing a practically
unknown sport. This financial blow signaled the end of their

(04:13):
Olympic dreams. They already had to pay for expensive flights
and accommodation just to train, and now they'd lost all
their gear. Luckily, they managed to raise the money needed
to replace most of it, but looking back, that was
the final straw for Australia's first curling team. When the

(04:33):
qualifying games came around, the Aussies played with the spirit
that had got them there, but it just wasn't enough.
They came tenth, missing the Olympics by half a point.
For a while, it looked as if Australia's curling dreams
were over. Hugh Milliken wasn't the only one working hard

(04:54):
to raise the sports profile down under. Lynn Gill was
watching the nineteen ninety eight Winter olymp Ex held in
Japan when she chanced upon the icy game and immediately
fell in love. Excited to have a go, she called
up her local ice drink, only to learn what Hugh
had already discovered. There were no dedicated curling facilities in

(05:17):
the whole of Australia, least of all in Sydney where
she was living. In fact, the ice rink she called
had no idea what curling even was years passed. Lynn
focused on raising her family, but she couldn't seem to
get curling out of her head. After moving to Brisbane,

(05:38):
she decided to try her local ice rinks again. This time,
the person she spoke to knew what curling was, and
even better, they knew where she could find stones to
play with. There just so happened to be a bunch
gathering dust at a neighboring ice rink. They agreed to
let a practice if she went and collected the stones
herself and found a group of people who wanted to play.

(06:00):
So Lynn now had some equipment and a place to train,
but she still needed to find other people who wanted
to join and learn the rules of the game herself.
This was pre social media, it wasn't exactly easy to
meet other curling enthusiasts. She started by asking every Canadian
or Scottish person she met if they knew anything about curling.

(06:20):
She put adverts in the newspaper and even tried to
interest her friends and family in the game. Surprisingly it worked.
Lynn eventually pulled together about fifteen people enough to form
the Queensland Curling Association, and after receiving just an hour
of training through a former Scottish champion. Finally Lynn was
on the ice. It seems sort of risky dedicating all

(06:45):
those years to a game you've never played. What if
Lynn ended up hating it? Fortunately, though she loved it.
Lynn joined the Australian women's curling team, became a curling
coach and is now the matriarch of one of the
greatest curling families in Australian history, the Gills. A passion
for curling is often passed down from parent to child,

(07:08):
and Australia's current mixed doubles team Dean Hewett and Tari Gill,
is no exception. Dean Hewitt is the son of Stephen Hewitt,
who was part of the original Australian curling team alongside
Hugh Milliken. Tarly Gill, Dean's doubles partner, is Lyn Gill's daughter.
Their coach, John Morris wait for it, is the son

(07:29):
of Earl Morris, the coach who worked with the Australian
team in their bid for the twenty ten Olympic Games.
In twenty twenty one, at a qualifying event in the Netherlands,
they made history by being the first ever Australian curling
team to receive a quota spot for the twenty twenty
two Winter Olympics. They've now got their sites firmly set
on the next games in twenty twenty six. In February

(07:52):
of twenty twenty three, the World Curling Federation announced that
Australia's curling community had finally got their long awaited wish.
A d dedicated curling facility will open Integron on Canberra,
one of Australia's coldest cities. It's due to open in
twenty twenty five, meaning for the first time ever, Ossie's
will be able to train on home soil, just in

(08:13):
time for Tali and Dean to make history once again.
Thanks for hanging out in the ballroom, I'm Tony Armstrong
and you've been listening to an iHeart production. See you
next time for another story from the wonderful world of sport.

(08:35):
Catch up