There’s actually no rules against the pants – but there probably will be after this…
I couldn’t care less about the Olympic Games and I was planning to stay away from all TV-sports the next weeks. Until I remembered that curling is a part of it. I discovered this weird sport when zapping through the channels back in 2002. Equipped with teflon shoes and brooms Norway swept their way to the final in the 2002 Olympics, and ended up bringing the gold medal back home from Salt Lake City by beating Canada in the final.
Norway met Canada again yesterday in their first match. This time the Norwegian team was armed with more than shiny shoes and brooms. They were dressed in clown-like pants, designed to draw everyone’s attention away from rocks and brooms, and onto disturbing red, blue and white argyle pattern. Why? WHY?! Would anyone comment on the huge elephant in the room? Had I missed out on a sarcastic remark by the commentator? Or did everyone else find this outfit perfectly normal? My questions were many, and although the race between Norway and Canada was quite close, I could not really pay attention to the game until I got my answers.
The elephant has been noticed. The Norwegian Olympic Curling Team’s Pants fan page at Facebook has reached 30.000 fans – and the pants made their public debut on the TV-screen just about 30 hours ago! I found the WHY there:
It’s just that it’s Norwegian colours and our shirts weren’t that bright so we just figured we would spice it up a little bit with some colours. It’s really nice fabric! [...] There’s actually no rules against the pants – but there probably will be after this.
Christoffer Svae, The Norwegian Olympic Curling Team member
Do you want some fancy pants too? Buy them online!
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UPDATE (Feb 28th 2010):
The fan page on Facebook has now 545.116 fans! The pants made it to the final where they met Canada once again. Unfortunately the magic pants’ power wasn’t enough to bring the gold medal home to Norway. But we like silver. It does match the argyle pattern much better anyway.