He Mufei: Growing stronger with the curling team

He Mufei, a PhD student in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, is the co-founder of Tsinghua University’s curling team.

Recent years have been a fruitful period for Mufei's team. Her team has recently achieved several impressive milestones, including winning the Capital Campus Curling Competition championship and ranking first among all amateur teams in the Winter Olympics Test.

For a team just established in 2019, they were certainly a considerable feat, but also much more than that.

Mufei said the victories have given the team recognition outside campus, but importantly they have fueled her teammates’ confidence to shoot for the stars.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m a very competitive person,” she explained. “But there is something very special about winning in sports, especially when you are in a team.”

She vividly recalls the thrill of excitement that ran through her during those competitions when the crowd stood on their feet and cheered every time she or anyone from her team hit a nice shot. She also remembers hugging her teammates and crying tears of joy when they went on to victory in the final.

Mufei said that she had never imagined experiencing such emotional moments until she actually lived through them.

Initiating the curling team

The first time Mufei tried curling was in 2017, when she was an exchange student at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. “It was so much fun and super beginner-friendly,” Mufei recalled. Interested in skiing and horseback riding, Mufei was now fascinated by curling, so much so that it soon became her new hobby.  

At Tsinghua, she was with a couple of friends from the Skiing Association one day when she learned that the curling rinks in Beijing were preparing for the First Capital Campus Curling Competition. But to her surprise, many of her friends who had been following the sport for years did not know there were curling facilities in Beijing. Then, she figured that it might be a great idea to start a curling club on campus so that more Tsinghua students could try it out.

In 2019, Mufei and two other students founded the university curling team, hoping to train themselves systematically and compete in more games. They were joined by two students with professional training experience and several dedicated members to become a team of nine. Today, the team trains and holds club activities primarily at the newly built North Gymnasium Ice Rink, with guidance from their coach, Jiang Xindi, a former national team member and athlete at the Beijing Winter Olympics.

From Tsinghua to Ice Cube

As a newly formed team, it lacked funding or coaches, so the team members did almost everything on their own, from booking curling rinks to making training plans. Despite all these difficulties, Mufei and her teammates managed to design their training plan.

“We begin with sliding on ice with one foot, then sliding towards a certain direction, then we practice draws, hits, and sweeping. Afterward, we also run a few games against each other so that the four players can bond as a team and the skip can practice tactics,” she said, describing her team’s training sessions.

Their hard work was soon paid off. In April 2021, the curling team was invited to the Winter Olympic Test Event for Curling at the Ice Cube. “It was the best experience I have ever had,” said Mufei. “It was so unreal that as amateur curlers, we could curl at the world’s best curling rink and compete with the Chinese national curling team.” More importantly, they met many friends from professional teams and learned a lot while competing against them.

Thanks to the high-level facilities and advice from professionals, all members brought out the best in themselves during the competitions.

Understanding teamwork through curling

For Mufei, curling is a sport that requires not only individual tactic but also teamwork. “You really need to learn how to communicate with your teammates fully and effectively,” Mufei said. “Because, for every stone, everyone needs to be on the same page, the thrower, the sweeper, the skip.”

At first, the team members struggled to maintain a team spirit. But through practice, they gradually learned how to read the ice and the stone and even built up their own vocabularies to coordinate more efficiently. As they made progress, their faith in each other also grew stronger.

Prior to curling, Mufei had not done much team sports. But now, she knows how to be a team player and supports her teammates no matter what the result is.

“We will do high five with every team member after every stone,” Mufei said. “It’s all about binding us as one and creating a stronger team.”