From time to time, a friend and fellow sportswriter likes to josh me about a supposed insight I offered him at the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games. This took the form of a swiftly drawn diagram on a crumpled piece of paper - I think he still has it - and related to the tactics which might be employed by the skip of the British women's curling team, Rhona Martin, during the gold medal match against Switzerland.

I think I must have been out of my tiny mind. Had I offered some kind of theory about 1500 metres running, or even the pluses and minuses of packing midfield at the expense of leaving only one man up front, I might have been on safer, if unspectacular ground. But curling?

Well, the thing is, this is a sport which somehow draws the observer in. Believe me, I wasn't the only instant expert watching that match. Like the stones themselves, you can find yourself gliding inexorably into the House of Curling.

Shortly before the 1998 Nagano Games, where curling - whose origins have been traced back to the 16th century, and Scotland - made a belated official entry to the Olympic programme, I spoke to the proud Scot preparing to skip the British men's team, Dougie Dryburgh, and his precise explanation of some of the game's finer points meant I travelled to Japan intrigued to witness it for myself.

Britain's team at the 1924 Winter Games in Chamonix, where curling was a demonstration sport ©Hulton Archive/ Getty Images


Anyone trying to come to terms with the technical aspects of curling has first to crash through some particularly obvious barriers. "In the house." Nothing to do with DJs; everything to do with getting to the central target area, a circle of six feet radius. "Double take out." Nothing to do with excessive amounts of fast food; everything to do with knocking opponents' stones from the scoring area by hitting them with your own, a manoeuvre Britain's David Murdoch demonstrated so dramatically to earn his team a place in the Sochi semis. "Draw." Nothing to do with sharing the spoils; everything to do with getting ahead as your stone glides, or nudges, its way to the centre of the action as a scoring shot.

Dryburgh used a golfing analogy to illuminate one of the main tenets of his chosen sport. "In golf they say 'never up, never in', but it's the reverse in curling," he said. "If you deliver the stone too heavy, there's nothing you can do about it. The idea is to deliver it just a bit light, so you can speed it up by brushing in front of it."

Bing! Lightbulb comes on. Comprehension dawns...

Sadly for Flight Lieutenant - and soon to be Squadron Leader - Dryburgh, the British team could only manage seventh place in a competition where Switzerland upset the favourites Canada to claim gold.

The British women, skipped by Kirsty Hay (then married to Mike, Team GB's Chef de Mission at the Sochi Games) enjoyed far better fortunes as they reached the semi-finals, only to lose 6-5 to eventual gold medallists Canada. The late Sandra Schmirler, acknowledged as the best player in the world, produced a characteristically precise final delivery which came to rest no more than an inch closer to the centre of the house than the nearest British stone.

Sandra Schmirler sends down another delivery at the 1998 Nagano Winter Games, where she skipped the Canadian team to gold ©Getty Images


Hay had approached the Games with an attitude you might describe as feisty. "We had a responsibility here to get people to change their attitude to the image of the sport," she said. "Even when we met some of the other athletes out here they thought we were going to be Highland grannies."

Asked afterwards if she had been disappointed to lose so narrowly on the final delivery, she replied with a tight smile: "Disappointed would probably cover it." Sadly there was further disappointment in store for the British - that is, Scottish - team as they lost out to Sweden for the bronze medal.

British skip Kirsty Hay led her team to within tantalising reach of a medal at the 1998 Nagano Games ©Getty Images


Fast forward four years, and all that British and Scottish frustration turned to joy as Martin produced a final delivery of similar drama to Schmirler's in 1998.

The silence inside the Ogden Ice Sheet as the 35-year-old mother of two from the village of Dunlop, in Ayrshire prepared to make her fateful move was almost unbearable. A rapt audience of around 2,000 spectators was supplemented by 6.5 million TV viewers in Britain who were watching late into Sunday night.

The Swiss stone lay alone in the house and it was hard to see the line Martin could take to dislodge it. But as I recall, she did not at any point look up to the press benches for guidance. Instead she sent her yellow-tagged stone unerringly towards the waiting red-tagged stone, nudging it out of pole position. "It was a routine draw," Martin announced afterwards with characteristic razzmattazz.

Rhona Martin makes the gold medal-winning final delivery at the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games ©Getty Images


This was the moment which would, and will, be celebrated down the years when this Olympic victory is remembered. But what gave the final flourish added resonance was the position in which Martin and her colleagues had found themselves a few days earlier, when successive defeats in the pool stages by the United States and Germany caused her to announce to the press: "We're out."

The Britons' only hope of retaining an interest in the 19th Winter Games was for Switzerland, who were already assured of a semi-final place, to defeat Germany in their final qualifying game.

"Both teams will be trying," said a stony-faced Martin. "But Switzerland will not do us any favours because they're already through. If they'd lost today it might have been a different situation."

Rhona Martin is embraced in the moment of victory by team-mate Fiona MacDonald as their Swiss opponents, whose honourable victory over Germany in their final pool match let Britain back into the tournament, commiserate with each other ©Getty Images


The Germans, however, could not earn the win they needed to progress, and slid back into a three-way play-off with Britain and Sweden which saw Martin and Co progress to a semi-final where they beat Canada 6-5.

The sporting fidelity of the competition had held good. And however the final medals are dispersed in the women's gold and bronze medal matches today, curling - which made six appearances at the Games as a demonstration sport before being recognised on the main programme - is becoming ever more firmly established within the Olympic "House".

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £12.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.