The wrong trousers? Norway’s plain display disappoints curling fans

A grand, recent tradition of the Winter Olympics has bitten the dust after Norway’s men’s curling team took to the ice on Wednesday for their opening match in Beijing wearing plain dark blue trousers. In recent Games the elaborate designs on their trousers – often referred to as pants in American English usage – had become a highlight of the curling competition.

The 2022 Norwegian men’s curling team had even teased supporters with a social media post in January saying: “We’re counting down the days, and so is our wardrobe it seems,” with a video of them in training wearing rather nondescript uniforms.

Some had interpreted that as a cryptic clue that there would be a dramatic reveal of the team’s trousers when they opened their campaign with a round-robin match against Switzerland in Beijing. But it was not to be.

Over the years, the outlandish trousers have proved such a hit with fans that there is even a Facebook page dedicated to the Norwegian Olympic Curling Team’s Pants, with nearly half a million likes.

The team’s penchant for standing out on the ice began when Thomas Ulsrud first skippered them at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. He went on to lead them again at Sochi in 2014 and at Pyeongchang in 2018.

At each Olympics Norway’s curlers would arrive with a different set of trousers for each match, showcasing myriad eye-bursting designs. The team’s retirement in 2019 was marked on social media by the World Curling Federation, with them suggesting there were only two words to describe their contribution to the sport – “the pants”.

Two words: The Pants.