How Curling Became the Winter Olympics’ Favorite Fixation

It’s like clockwork. Every four years, a whole new coterie finds itself unexpectedly enamored with curling. It’s easy to see why. There’s an element of competence porn to watching passionate athletes masterfully do something that to the rest of the world probably looks like bocce on ice. The precision of the stone throw, the careful sweeping. It’s transfixing. As the 2026 Winter Olympics begin in Italy, viewers are entranced.

But as audiences settle in to learn all about the game’s modern iteration and all the gadgets that come with it, attention should be paid to the curlers of yore—and what their game tells us about how the Earth’s climate used to be.

The first written record of curling dates back to 1540. A notary in Paisley, Scotland, named John McQuhin wrote a record in Latin about a challenge between John Sclater, a monk at Paisley Abbey, and Gavin Hamilton, the abbot’s representative. It’s said that Sclater threw a stone three times on the surface of a frozen lake and agreed to the contest. There’s no record of whether or not anyone won this challenge, but it was agreed that moving stones along frozen bodies of water was a good time.

Often called “the roaring game” because of the sounds stones make on the ice, curling became popular in northern Europe, specifically Scotland, because of the especially harsh winters of 400-plus years ago. Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder featured peasants watching a game that looks like curing in two paintings in 1565 and 1566. The word “curling”—born from the curl, or curved trajectory, of stones during the game—first emerged in 1620 in the verses of a poem by Henry Adamson.

Formed in 1716, the Kilsyth Curling Club, from the Scottish town of same name, is widely considered the world’s first official curling club. (It’s still active today.) The Royal Caledonian Curling Club, founded in 1838, first formalized the rules of the game, according to the International Olympic Committee. From that club grew the World Curling Federation, which is based in the Scottish town of Perth and remains active to this day.

Early on, the stones used in the sport were literally that: boulders that had been flattened and shaped. There were no requirements for size or handles. Some just had holes, similar to a bowling ball. The crude stones meant throwers largely relied on luck rather than skill or technique.

Over the years, the sport has introduced far more rules and regulations, some very complex, when it comes to the weight and shape of the stones. Same goes for the size of the pitch and the structure of matches. Today it is the skip, or team leader, who shouts out instructions to the throwers on their curls, strength, and trajectories. The skip does the same for the sweepers who “sweep” the surface in front of the stone to make it slide.

Scots are also responsible for the spread of curling worldwide. Immigrants from Scotland brought their passion for the sport to North America, especially Canada, where it is still wildly popular.

Curling made its Olympics debut in 1924 at the Winter Games in Chamonix, France. At the time, it was just a demonstration sport. It wasn’t until 1998, during the Games in Nagano, Japan, that it became an official Olympic sport. To date, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Norway have distinguished themselves as curling competitors at the Games.

While the sport was paving its way to an official Olympic sport, it also made inroads in popular culture. The Beatles attempt to play in their 1965 film Help! The game also makes an appearance in the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

In the early 2000s, as 24-hour coverage and DVRs became commonplace in Olympics-watching, the sport developed a cultlike following. People who could now watch events at times convenient for their time zone found they could tune in and get lost in the sport’s fascinating dynamic for hours. For the 2026 Winter Games, the coverage continues—every stone and every sweep.