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Wheelchair curling
Take sweeping out of curling and you take out the entire error-correction system. Every stone finishes exactly where it was thrown, which makes this the most exposed test of delivery in the sport.
Last updated 2026-08-18
- 0sweeping, of any kind
- 8ends
- 38minutes of thinking time each
- 2006Paralympic medal sport since Torino
What removing sweeping does#
Rule R14(d) is four words long: Sweeping is not permitted. It is the most consequential rule in the discipline and it is routinely reported as though it were a simplification.
It is the opposite. In the running game, sweeping is how a team fixes a stone that came out a fraction wrong. A draw thrown a foot light can be swept a foot further; a stone curling too much can be kept straighter. Something between a quarter and a half of a good team's shot-making is really error correction performed after the stone has left the hand — see what sweeping does for the numbers.
In wheelchair curling, every stone finishes exactly where the delivery sent it. There is no second chance and no shared responsibility. The weight has to be right at the moment of release, on ice whose speed is changing under you, and it either is or it is not.
Two practical consequences follow. Reading the ice matters more, because you cannot brush your way out of a misread — see ice speed. And a game takes on a different rhythm: quieter, since the shouting in curling is almost all sweeping calls, and slower between stones, which is why the format gets a ten-end game's thinking time for eight ends.
The delivery#
The chair is stationary. The wheels must be in contact with the ice, and no part of the player's body may touch the ice at any point during delivery. Chairs are commonly held steady by a team-mate.
Where the stone may start from depends on where down the sheet the player is:
- Behind the house — anywhere between the hack and the outer edge of the house, the stone must start on the centre line.
- Between the house and the hog line — the whole width of the stone must sit inside the two wheelchair lines, which run 457 mm (18 inches) either side of the centre line.
The stone must be clearly released before it reaches the hog line at the delivery end, as in the running game. One thing does differ: a stone counts as delivered once it reaches the hog line at the delivery end, rather than the tee line. Before that it can be returned to the player and thrown again. The game clock stops at the same line for the same reason.
A delivery violation is dealt with plainly: the stone comes out of play and anything it displaced goes back, replaced by the non-offending team.
The delivery stick#
A delivery stick is a shaft with a bracket that fits over the stone's handle, letting a player push the stone without bending down to it. It releases when the player lets go, and it must not confer any mechanical advantage beyond acting as an extension of the arm.
Three rules attach to it:
- It may not be used in any World Curling competition or qualifying event except wheelchair events.
- A player who chooses it must use it for every stone they deliver for the whole game. No switching between stick and hand.
- It must conform to the Wheelchair Curling Policy.
Outside World Curling competition, sticks are common and entirely welcome — they are how a great many people keep curling into their seventies and eighties, and how plenty of people with back or knee problems start at all. World Curling publishes separate recommendations for stick use in recreational play. If your club has stick curlers, they are playing curling.
Teams and the gender rule#
At World Curling wheelchair competitions, each on-ice team of four must include both genders at all times during a game. A team that violates this forfeits. There is no equivalent requirement in the men's or women's team game, where mixed events are a separate discipline.
The rule interacts carefully with the ordinary provisions for a player leaving mid-game. If somebody has to leave and their stones still need throwing, an alternate must come in immediately and the team must still be mixed-gender; failing that, the game is forfeit. If their stones are already thrown, the alternate comes in at the start of the next end.
Every difference, in one table#
| Team curling | Wheelchair curling | |
|---|---|---|
| Sweeping | Central to the game | Not permitted |
| Delivery | Sliding out of the hack | From a stationary chair, wheels on the ice, no body contact with the ice |
| Delivery stick | Not permitted in World Curling events | Permitted; if used, must be used for every stone |
| Stone in play at | The tee line at the delivery end | The hog line at the delivery end |
| Team composition | Four players, no gender requirement | Four players, both genders required at all times |
| Ends | Ten in most international events | Eight |
| Thinking time | 38 min for ten ends | 38 min for eight ends |
| Extra end thinking time | 4 min 30 s | 6 min |
| No-tick rule | Applies | Does not apply |
| Games are | Olympic | Paralympic |
Wheelchair mixed doubles#
A newer discipline again: two players, one male and one female, no alternates at all. It is played to the mixed doubles rules — positioned stones, five stones an end, eight ends, the power play — with wheelchair delivery and no sweeping whatsoever.
Two details particular to it. Players may be helped to hold the chair by an Ice Player Assistant rather than by a team-mate, and choosing that option means giving up any right to appeal afterwards about how the chair was held. And electric wheelchairs are not allowed unless the athlete uses one for daily mobility. Thinking time is 26 minutes, with a seven-minute halfway break rather than five.
How it got here#
- 2000 Wheelchair curling is introduced as a discipline at Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
- Jan 2002 The first World Wheelchair Curling Championship.
- 2006 Paralympic medal status, at the Torino Games.
- 2022 The Paralympic field expands to twelve teams at Beijing.
Six years from invention to Paralympic medal status is extremely quick, and the reason is that curling needed almost no adaptation to get there. The sheet is the same sheet, the stones are the same stones, and the house does not care what you are sitting on.
Elsewhere#
- Wheelchair curling — International Paralympic CommitteeResults, classification and the current international calendar.
Sources#
- Primary The Rules of Curling, R14 and R15 World Curling, 2025The delivery rules, the wheelchair line geometry, the no-sweeping rule, the gender requirement, the stick restrictions at R11(e) and the wheelchair mixed doubles provisions. Timing is at C6.
- Primary History of curling World CurlingFor the 2000 introduction, the 2002 first world championship and the 2006 Paralympic status.