Olympics-Curling-Switzerland’s Schwaller following in father’s footsteps at Winter Games

By Aadi Nair

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Yannick Schwaller was just six years old when his father Christof and his uncle Andreas guided Switzerland to a bronze medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Twenty-four years later, he is the skip of a Swiss team that has qualified for the semi-finals at the Milano Cortina Olympics after winning eight out of eight games in the men’s round-robin competition.

“It’s awesome. In 2002, there was a bus going to get them at Zurich Airport when they came back, and I remember vaguely a public viewing,” Schwaller said on Wednesday.

“That maybe sparked some inspiration early. I wasn’t really coached by my father, but it was always a bit of mentoring, when I had questions. Now it feels like a circle is closing. 24 years later, I’m playing on this stage as well. 

“He even played the World Championships here (Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium) in 2010, I think. So yeah, it’s just an awesome feeling to follow his footsteps.”

It took a while before Schwaller embraced his curling roots, however.

“I didn’t want to be a curler at first until I was 13 or 14. I only had football in mind and I played football a lot, we grew up next to a pitch,” he said. 

“But then it (curling) grabbed me somehow, and I never looked back. My dad, he was so cool about it. He never said ‘you have to do this or do that now, you have to practice’. He really let me do my own thing.”

Schwaller has brought his son River with him to the Games, who was dubbed the ‘Curling Baby’ and became an internet sensation this month when cameras captured the one-and-a-half-year-old playing with a curling broom twice his height.

Asked if his son would also become a curler, Schwaller said: “He can choose for himself, I guess, but the way he’s attracted to brooms, he might be!”

(Reporting by Aadi NairEditing by Christian Radnedge)