i Lingshu, an athletic training professor at Faculty for Physical Education of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), and another Chinese were announced as members of International Technical Officials of the Olympic Winter Games 2022. It is the first time that Chinese curling umpires will serve as umpires at the Winter Olympic Games which demonstrates Chinese umpires' growing expertise in winter sports in recent years.

Li will act as Deputy Chief Timer at the Olympics, a crucial position in each game because it must ensure that each timer performs well and that each athlete competes fairly.

"I am honored and delighted to be awarded the position," Li said, "because we represent all Chinese curling umpires and the level of Chinese curling umpires."

Contacting with Curling in Olympics 

Before the announcement, Li had joined the test event for Winter Olympics in October. She was also assigned as Deputy Chief Timer, assisting a German Chief Timer. However, unlike most competitions, she was acquired to learn the new Omega timekeeper, which has served as the Official Timekeeper of the Olympic Games on 28 occasions in a variety of sports since 1932. Meanwhile, she was tasked with training other Chinese timers.  “The German Chief Timer and I were asked to select 15 Chinese timers from a pool of 45and to train them three times a day. When the second training ended, I was exhausted, but I still needed to regain my energy”, Li explained.

Li improved her memory for the Omega timekeeper and competition rules by taking notes wherever she went during training, in case she forgot something important. Besides, she translated the rules into Chinese for easy comprehension and corrected them quickly whenever the WCF website updated the rules. 

The test event, she believes, increased her confidence in her ability to umpire well at the Winter Olympics.

Relationship with curling in life

Li recalled her curling experience in 2011, when the Chinese government was carrying out the “South-Exhibition and North-Ice” strategy to raise public interest in winter sports. Li was picked to receive instruction from professional curling coaches and umpires, and the following year, she became the curling team's coach and a teacher in SISU's curling optional class.

While working as a teacher, she found time to learn the rules of curling and passed the national first-level curling umpire qualification exam in 2014. She was later asked to umpire in a number of national and local curling competitions, where she improved her umpiring skills and laid the foundation for the Olympics. 

“I'm grateful that curling allows me to communicate with more professional umpires around the world,” Li said, “I'll do my best to promote curling.” 

In addition to instructing at SISU's curling optional class, Li has opened curling class at the Chinese Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and is attempting to open at the world’s MOOC. She also plans to rewrite her previous book, Curling Introduction and Teaching Practice, so that more people can learn about curling.

As the Winter Olympics approach, Li needs to devote more time to curling umpire training. “Winter Olympics is a fantastic chance to show the world Chinese curling umpire capability,” Li said, “I promise I'll try to do a good job that day.”