Curling hits big time with nude calendar

[LionDen]

Female curlers featured from across Europe, Canada

TURIN, Italy - In the surest sign yet that curling has reached the big time, the stone-and-broom game has joined other Olympic endeavors with a nude calendar of its own.

“It’s about time,” said Paal Trulsen, the skip of the Norwegian men’s team. “It’s a fun thing, but we want curling to be just like other sports. We had the doping thing, now we have the calendar.”

The Ana Arce Team Sponsorship Calendar is being peddled during the Turin Olympics as curling makes its quadrennial appearance in the spotlight. The black-and white-pictures feature female curlers from Italy, Denmark, Spain, England, Poland, Germany, Austria and Canada, with a brief description of their athletic and sometimes academic achievements.

“Who better to represent the month of March, when many curlers are thinking of Taarnby, than Camilla Jensen?!” the calendar asks — a rhetorical question if there ever was one.

“If you have curled in charming Kitzbuhel” — and who hasn’t? — “you probably know the equally charming Toth sisters!” says the April caption under the photo of Austrian champion Claudia Toth.

Since the models are distinctly without their uniforms, the only sign of a curling connection is the stone used as a prop in the cover photo of Ana Toth, the Austrian skip who used to date U.S. skier Bode Miller. The months are numbered 1-12, in Roman numerals, to make the calendar useful for curling buffs — er, fans — around the world who don’t want to bother with translations.

September’s model is Lynsay Ryan, a Canadian provincial champion and the daughter of Olympic gold medalist Penny Schantz-Henderson and world champion Pat Ryan. Arce, whose picture graces May, has represented Andorra and Spain at four European Championships.

The money from the calendar goes to the national programs in the participants’ countries.

“This is a tasteful, artistic product that will help the athletes raise much needed funds for training and competition,” Arce said. “This proves that curlers are athletes. Strong but graceful, and of course very beautiful.”

The Associated Press

[Jake]

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