Curling at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics: What are the rules, how does scoring work, what are Team GB's prospects?

A game of power sweeping, precision and puzzle solving, curling has been branded ‘chess on ice’. So what are the rules of everyone’s favorite Winter Games event? How does the scoring work? And how do you, erm, curl a stone? We’re on hand to answer all your questions ahead of the Winter Olympics. Watch every event live from Milano Cortina 2026 across TNT Sports and discovery+

Every four years, one sport grips us like no other.

On the surface, it shouldn’t work. Stones, brooms and lots of yelling don’t seem like the ingredients for elite sport, and yet it all comes together perfectly to make curling a staple of every Winter Olympics.

Milano Cortina 2026 will be no different, with three competitions on the menu : the men’s, women’s and mixed doubles events, all taking place in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

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And the event also happens to be one of Team GB’s best hopes for gold, as the men’s team are reigning world champions and the women’s team won gold last time out in Beijing 2022.

Curling was part of the inaugural Winter Games in 1924, although it took 82 years for the results to be officially recognised.

It disappeared from the programme immediately – returning as a demonstration event in 1932, 1988 and 1992 – before its true introduction in 1998.

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British fans over the age of 30 will likely remember being gripped by curling fever in 2002, when Rhona Martin let go of the ‘Stone of Destiny’ and catapulted Great Britain to a stunning upset gold medal win in Salt Lake City.

However, it is Canada and Sweden who have dominated the men’s and women’s sides of the sport respectively, with Great Britain the third most successful nation.

Canada have won a record six gold medals, including three in a row with their men’s team from 2006 to 2014. Meanwhile, Sweden have won four golds and their stranglehold over the women’s competition between 2006 and 2018 was only broken once, by Canada.

The mixed doubles made its debut at the Games at PyeongChang 2018 in South Korea, with Canada’s Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris securing the gold medal.

In Cortina d’Ampezzo, the mixed doubles competition will unofficially start the Games on February 4 before the Opening Ceremony two days later, with wall-to-wall curling on the horizon throughout the show in Italy.

The mixed doubles gold medal game is on February 8, while the men’s and women’s finals are on February 19 and February 20 respectively - the latter will be one of the last golds awarded in the games.

So chances are when you tune into TNT Sports and discovery+, you will be greeted by grown adults huddled around a moving stone, frantically brushing near it as it dawdles towards the target zone…

Team GB athletes and medal prospects

Team GB have tasted gold three times at the Olympics: in 1924 (men), 2002 and 2022 (both women) while the men’s team won silver in Beijing behind Sweden.

Britain have secured spots in the men’s, women's and mixed doubles competition in Milano Cortina.

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Bruce Mouat will skip a men’s team that is virtually unchanged from Beijing - Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan Jr. all return while Kyle Waddell, who competed in PyeongChang 2018, has replaced Ross Whyte.

By contrast, only one curler returns from Eve Muirhead’s victorious women’s team four years ago. Curling teams are selected as a package deal, so rather than necessarily selecting the five best British curlers from all the teams competing on the circuit they pick the most qualified team.

Rebecca Morrison is now the women’s skip, joined by Olympic debutants Sophie Sinclair, Sophie Jackson and Fay Henderson. Jennifer Dodds is the one returning member of the team - she joined Team Morrison after the Beijing Games.

Mixed doubles rinks only have two members, so Mouat and Dodds will team up in that competition, which made its Olympic debut four years ago.

Morrison’s rink are yet to taste gold in the biggest events and were knocked out by eventual champions Canada in the 2025 World Championships.

However, Mouat’s rink is arguably the most formidable in the world. First formed in 2017, they’ve won two World Championship titles in three years, they are second on the World Curling Tour (WCT) rankings and won three out of five Grand Slam events in 2025.

Those grand slams are a big deal - all held in Canada, they each have a prize purse of at least CAD$100,000 (around £53,000).

Events and format

Curling at Milano Cortina is split into three categories: men, women and mixed doubles.

Each competition features 10 teams, who play every other team in a round-robin tournament. The highest-ranked four teams advance to the semi-finals and medal matches.

The men’s and women’s teams are comprised of four players per team, while the mixed doubles features two athletes (one male, one female). There is one reserve player, known as an alternate, in case of injury.

Who won the last Olympic gold in curling?

Sweden won their first-ever men’s Olympic curling gold at Beijing 2022, while Great Britain claimed the women’s title.

Italy were surprise victors in the mixed doubles, winning the country’s first ever Olympic medal in the sport, while Canada failed to win at least one gold for the first time since 2002.

Curling rules

Before we begin, a few terms:

• Stone: A polished block of granite with a handle on top
• House: A circular archery-style target on the ice floor
• Button: The centre (aka bullseye) of the house
• End: A round, consisting of each side throwing playing stones

The goal of curling is simple: score more points than the opposition. To score points, you need to get your stone(s) closer to the button than any of the opposing colour. Except it’s slightly more complicated than that…

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In the men's and women's competition there are four players on each team, with each player getting two stones. Players go in order, with the first player (known as the lead) throwing a team’s first two stones, the second playing the next two, and so on. The two teams take alternate shots.

Players send their stones down a narrow strip of ice towards the house, sliding as they line up their shot, and must let go before arriving at a marker known as the hog line. Any stones that touch the sides or go past the house are removed from the game.

The points are totalled up when all 16 stones have been played, with the match continuing over 10 ends – effectively 10 separate mini-games of curling. There is a house at both the top and bottom of the ice, with the start points alternating each end.

Mixed doubles has the same scoring but it's shorter and can be more chaotic as there are only two players, eight ends and five stones per team in each end.

There are also pre-placed stones and teams are prohibited from knocking out any stones from play until partway through the end.

This means it’s easier for teams to win an end against the hammer (more on that in a moment), and you often see higher-scoring matches in mixed doubles.

How does curling scoring work?

Closest to the button wins. If a team has multiple stones closer to the button than the opposition, they get that many points. Examples as follows:

Example 1: Yellow team score one point

Image credit: TNT Sports

Example two: Red team score two points

Image credit: TNT Sports

There are no ties so, if the scores are level, a tie-breaker end is held and repeated until a winner is found. Be warned: the tactics to build a score are often complex and counter-intuitive.

What is the hammer?

The hammer is the most important part of curling – the final shot in an end. A team keeps the hammer until they score a point. If an end is blank, or their opponent scores a point, the hammer is retained. A coin toss decides who starts with the hammer.

Also look out for ‘guard’ shots that sit in front of the house to impede their opponents.

How do you curl in curling?

When the stone is released, its handle is given a little twist in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.

This is what makes the stone curve, or curl, when it travels down the ice. But there is another way to control a stone’s direction, which brings us onto…

What does sweeping do in curling?

Also known as the people with the brooms being shouted at. So what do they actually do? A lot, it turns out.

The sweepers help control the pace and direction of a stone. The pressure of the broom reduces the friction between the stone and ice, basically allowing them to steer it.

Up to three players can sweep the ice at one time, but they must not touch the stone. All while being peppered with commands from the skip.

How long is the curling rink?

The curling arena is 46 metres long and five metres wide.

Also, the ice is not smooth! It has a pebble-like surface, created by frozen water droplets, that allows the stones to curl.

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Watch every event of Milano Cortina 2026 live on discovery+. Available across all subscription plans, starting at £3.99.

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