Olympic Curling Preview

The long awaited curling competition gets underway today at the Vancouver Games. The men’s side begins at 12 eastern on USA (and online) against Germany while the women will start off against Japan at 5pm on CNBC.
On the men’s side, the clear favorite is defending world champion Kevin Martin. Martin is one of the best curlers in the world, if not the best right now. The US men, frankly, have little chance of winning it all. They’re just too young and inexperienced, but hopefully they will be able to build from here and get even better. With some luck, they might be able to squeeze into the medal round, but I’m predicting a 6th place finish. Also, watch out for the Norwegian John Daly-style pants. Stylish!
For the women, Debbie McCormick has been there before. She won the world championship in 2003, and is ready to go in Vancouver. She should at least make the playoff round. However, the other teams in the field are strong as well. I look for Canada to win gold against China, and Sweden to take the bronze.
Curling is one of the high points of the NBCOlympics.com coverage. You can watch every game live online, so be sure to bookmark the curling page and come back at noon Eastern time today to check out the action. You can also check out FULL event replays of the men’s downhill, among others. This way you can watch all the important runs, and not just what NBC thinks is important. They even bookmark the videos to mark the spots when the Americans are featured. Pretty cool.