Canada to Qatar, Scotland to Saudi Arabia - curling rocks!

Curling, once a fringe game played mostly by Canadians and Scots, will sweep onto the ice at next month's Pyeongchang Olympics with the proud boast of being the world's fastest growing winter sport.

The "roaring game" (so named for the sound of the rocks skidding down the ice), is now popping up in the sort of sunny places where ice usually comes in cubes to cool the drinks.

Qatar's men's team celebrated their first international victory in November, beating Kazakhstan on Australia's sun-soaked Central Coast. A few months earlier, Middle East neighbors Saudi Arabia secured conditional membership in the World Curling Federation, along with fellow-newcomers Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Portugal.

Las Vegas, in the heart of Nevada's Mojave desert, will host the men's world championship next April.

"You'd obviously think curling is for winter sport countries, but it's not really," said Kate Caithness, the Scottish head of the WCF and one of only two female presidents of any Olympic sport.

"You can have curling anywhere in the world. Give us a hall and we'll make ice. We've got these new facilities where we can almost roll out a mat, plug it in, add water and freeze it," she said from her office in Perth, Scotland.

In order to be included on the full program at the 1998 Nagano Olympics, curling needed to have 30 member nations. Twenty years later, there are 60 - and a growth explosion predicted.

"We've never been in better shape," said Caithness. "Mexico and Guyana are new members, and there's other members in South America waiting to come on board."

At the 2010 Games in Vancouver, curling was the most watched Winter Olympic sport on television in Brazil - a country that recently challenged powerhouse Canada for a place at the men's world championships.

There are no member nations from Africa as yet, but there has been interest with South Africa most likely to be the first on board.

Sleeping giant

Curling is already big in South Korea and Japan, and the main growth areas over the next four years for a sport also known as 'chess on ice' are likely to be China, host of the 2022 Olympics, and the United States.

"China is a huge, huge market for us," said Caithness. "We've just signed a $13.4 million contract with a sponsor (Kingdomway Sports) in China for the next four years in the run-up to 2022."

Curling at those Beijing Winter Games will be held in the Water Cube facility that hosted swimming at the 2008 summer Olympics. Transformed into the Ice Cube, the plan is to have a three-sheet rink in the basement so that fans can watch the competition upstairs and also try their hand at the sport downstairs.

"I'm on the 2022 IOC co-ordination commission, so I have the inside information. I've been there already with the IOC," said Caithness.

"They are going to put 300 million people in winter sports in China between now and 2022, and I understand they are building 500 new rinks. I think our sport is going to explode."

Starting in September, a new made-for-television Curling World Cup will be launched with four city events on three continents forming the 'Road to Beijing'.

The Olympic curling tournament starts a day before the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang and runs right through to the last Sunday, with more television coverage than any other sport.

To win a gold medal takes up to 33 hours on the ice, with nine round-robin games of three hours each followed by a semifinal and final. Pyeongchang will also see the debut of mixed doubles.

"We'll have non-stop curling every day from dawn until dusk. We have huge TV coverage and this is really going to help our sport as well," said Caithness.

Reuters