An eye-catching sport for those who are not used to sports on ice, curling has attracted the attention of Brazilian spectators watching the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Italy. The sport has few fans in Brazil, where there is only one official track, in São Paulo.
At first glance a type of bocce ball on ice, the contest consists of throwing granite stones weighing up to 20 kg onto a frozen track with the aim of getting it as close as possible to the center of the target. An object similar to a broom is rubbed on the ground to make it easier to slide the piece.
The first records indicate that the sport began to be practiced on frozen lakes in Scotland in the mid-16th century. The Winter Games debuted in the first edition of the event, in Chamonix, France, in 1924.
Between comings and goings, the event definitively entered the Olympic program at the Games in Nagano, Japan, in 1998, now reaching its ninth appearance in Milan-Cortina. Brazil — which took its largest delegation in history to Italy, with 14 athletes — has never qualified for curling in an Olympic edition.
The country’s history in the sport is very recent. A group of Brazilians living in Canada were the ones who started practicing sports representing Brazil in international competitions, at the end of the 2010s. The first editions of the Brazilian Championship, opened in 2015, took place in Vancouver.
The first Brazilian Championship actually held on Brazilian soil only took place in 2022, after the inauguration, two years earlier, of the Arena Ice Brasil, in the Morumbi region, in São Paulo, where the only official curling rink in Latin America is located. It is managed by CBDG (Brazilian Ice Sports Confederation).
In addition to hosting official competitions, the space in the capital of São Paulo welcomes amateurs and beginners interested in trying out the sport.
The confederation offers practitioners shoes with special soles that facilitate movement on the ice — a gripper sole and a slider sole —, as well as brooms that serve to reduce the friction between the stone and the ice, made with carbon fibers, called “brooms”.
“We introduce the sport to beginners and send them to clubs, such as Clube Curling Brasil, where they will be able to learn from scratch with experienced athletes and coaches”, said Tatiani Garcia, CBDG’s Olympic and Paralympic curling coordinator. “We even look for these people to discover new talent.”
She estimates that the Brazilian curling community currently has around 300 players, spread across Brazil, Canada and some European countries.
According to the CBDG coordinator, curling is a sport considered democratic. Practitioners can make their first throws and sweeps on the ice from the age of six and continue the sport beyond the age of 50 without any major problems.
“This is a sport in which you need to gain a lot of experience to be able to evolve, and we have been improving our base a lot. This is where we have invested the most, in athletes aged 9 to 21”, said Tatiani.
In wheelchair curling, Brazil debuted last year at the World Cup in the category, in Scotland. The Brazilian team and Norway were the only two to beat Japan, who would be the champion.
At the beginning of February, during the first week of the Milan-Cortina Games, when there was naturally greater public interest in the sport, the Ice Brasil rink was not available for training or official matches, due to technical problems in the machine imported from Canada responsible for forming the ice.
“I would say that Brazilian curling is a sport still in development,” said Fernanda Tieme Marques, director of CBDG and athlete, who started the sport around seven years ago, when she lived in Switzerland. She was part of the Brazilian champion team in 2025, in the women’s category, and has played for the national team, in mixed doubles.
Fernanda explained that the Brazilian team is part of Series C in the main international competitions, which corresponds to the third division in the world. To seek a place in the Winter Olympics, you must first advance to Series A.
Brazil is currently 30th in the women’s world rankings (there are 47 teams), 37th in men’s rankings (61 teams) and 42nd in mixed doubles (52 teams). Switzerland leads the women’s ranking; Scotland, men’s and mixed doubles.
“The dream of Olympic participation is still a little far away”, stated the director of CBDG.
One of the country’s main results so far has been in the youth categories. In January 2024, Brazil achieved its first Olympic victory, with a 6-4 triumph over Germany at the Winter Youth Games in South Korea.
“Everyone was very excited. There are countries with years of history in the sport, and Brazil is a country still in development. An achievement like this is like a title, and it’s really cool to see our youth already representing it,” said Tatiani.
According to her, despite being commonly compared to bocce, curling is treated as “chess on ice” among winter sports.
“Like chess, curling is very strategic. When we launch the stone, we need to think two or three moves ahead,” said the coordinator.
“The main characteristics of curling are strategy, precision and also teamwork. And, unlike bocce, where the ground doesn’t interfere much in the game, the ice interferes a lot in curling.”
Understand the rules of curling
— Matches are played on an ice rink 45 meters long and five meters wide;
— Each match in the men’s and women’s categories consists of ten “ends” (the equivalent of sets in tennis);
— Each team, made up of four athletes, is entitled to throw eight stones per “end”;
— At the end of throwing the 16 stones, the team that has the stones closest to the center of the target (called the “button”) wins.
