The Winter Olympics may have wrapped up in Sochi recently, but one of its sports is still going strong in the local area.
Curling became a Winter Olympic sport in 1998 and continues to grow in popularity around the United States.
The winter sport involves two teams of four sliding a stone across the ice into four concentric rings. The goal is to release the stone strategically into the ring to get the most points. Sweepers sweep the ice to influence the trajectory of the stone into the ring. The team with the most stones closest to the center win.
Joe Mecca, a member of the Triangle Curling Club in Wake Forest, N.C., says it's a sport for all ages. Mecca has been curling since 2006. He began curling at a time when there were very few curling centers.
"Curling is really growing in a lot of places where curling hadn't traditionally been a sport," Mecca says. "It's usually more of a northern sport."
Interest in the southeast has definitely grown, as clubs have popped up from Atlanta to Richmond to right here in North Carolina. Mecca says he believes the Olympic coverage over the years has helped popularize the sport.
First-time curler Kat Belk spoke about why she wanted to try the sport.
"The best part is I am doing it with my friends," she says. "It's actually so much tougher than I expected, so much more strategy, and it is something new and fun that I've never tried before".
Mecca says the growing demand of the sport led the Triangle Curling Club to open up its own facility in 1995. The club will continue to hold open houses and private lessons for anyone interested in playing the Olympic event.
Elon University seniors Samuel Ramirez, president of the Biology club, and Chris D'Inzeo, president of the American Chemical Society Club, led an outreach program aimed at inspiring local Alamance-Burlington School System high school students. The initiative was funded by Elon’s Student Government Association and Elon Innovation Fund. This resulted in 41 undergraduate volunteers and faculty. The program exposes ABSS high schoolers to STEM fields to spark interest and potential career paths. Offered on Saturday, April 20, the free event included transportation and meals to ensure accessibility for all participants. They’re hoping it becomes a once-a-semester event called “Stem Saturday.”
After 20.4% of the student body voted in the 2024-25 student body elections — compared to the 29.9% that voted in the 2023-24 elections — junior Ella Kucera, vice president of communications, said she hopes to increase awareness of the function of Elon University’s Student Government Association. With the decrease in voter turnout for this past election, members of SGA, both current and former, said they hope they can increase voter turnout in future elections by educating the student body about what student government does and making itself more present on campus.