THE Guyana Curling Federation (GCF) mixed-doubles curling team of Rayad and Farzana Hussain competed in the Oakville Curling Club Doubles Summer League and finished with a respectable record of five wins and two losses on their way to finishing second overall.

Last weekend, in Palmerston, Ontario, Canada (Palmerston Curling Club), the duo finished second in their Round-Robin group with a 2-1 record before bowing out in the Quarter-Final.

The next event for the pair will be a couple of exhibition games during the Brazilian Mixed-Doubles Championship to be played in Toronto at the Royal Canadian Curling Club from November 15 – 18.

Curling is a team sport played by two teams of four players on a rectangular sheet of ice. Its nickname, “The Roaring Game”, originates from the rumbling sound the 44-pound (19.96kg) granite stones make when they travel across the ice.

Rayad Hussain, General Secretary of the recently-launched Federation, is a Canadian by birth, and had told Chronicle Sport that he saw the need for potentially growing a sport and “bring something to Guyana that’s predominantly European to South America and to my parents’ homeland.”

Founded in 2016, the GCF has been established to not only govern and promote the Winter Olympic Sport of Curling to Guyanese both within Guyana and abroad, but to also raise the profile of Winter Sport within the Caribbean region by working with other similar bodies and organizations.

The Federation will also provide athletes both in and out of Guyana with opportunities to represent the country in international competitions as governed by the World Curling Federation.

The Federation has received Conditional Membership status from the World Curling Federation (56th Member Association) at its World Curling Congress in Stockholm, Sweden in September 2016, which will allow them to access development programmes to promote the sport to the Guyanese people.

Following a one-year period, the next step will be to apply for Provisional Membership status, which would allow their athletes to compete in international events, with the first being the 2018 World Mixed-Doubles Curling Championship, set for Östersund, Sweden, in 2018.