Olympic curling follows the World Curling Federation rulebook, with a few competition‑specific tweaks for the Games.

Basic objective

In all Olympic events (men’s, women’s, mixed doubles), teams slide granite stones toward a circular target called the house and try to have more stones closer to the very center (the button) than the opponent after each “end.”

Only one team can score in an end, and each counting stone is worth one point, so the maximum is eight points in a single end.

Teams and events

  • Men’s event: Four‑player teams plus an alternate; 10‑end games.
  • Women’s event: Same format as men’s; 10‑end games.
  • Mixed doubles: One man and one woman per team, each throwing five stones per end; eight‑end games.

On four‑player teams, the traditional positions are lead, second, third (vice‑skip), and skip, each throwing two stones in a fixed order that is declared before the game and cannot change during the game.

Game length, extra ends, and timing

  • Men’s and women’s games: 10 regulation ends.
  • Mixed doubles: 8 regulation ends.
  • If tied, teams play extra ends until one team scores.

Thinking‑time clocks are used: in recent Olympic play, men’s and women’s teams have 38 minutes of thinking time for a 10‑end game, plus one 60‑second coach timeout; the clock runs only while the team is deciding and stops when the stone is delivered.

Delivery and hog line rules

  • The delivering player must release the stone before it reaches the near hog line, and the stone must completely cross the far hog line to remain in play.
  • Stones that are released too late or do not reach the far hog line are considered “burned” and are removed from play.
  • A double touch by the thrower before the near hog line is not a violation, but once the stone crosses, touching your own moving stone with your body or equipment is a foul and that stone is removed.

Sweeping rules

  • Only stones that are moving may be swept.
  • Players sweep in front of the stone, roughly perpendicular to its direction of travel, to influence its speed and curl but may not intentionally hit the stone with the broom.
  • Behind the tee line at the playing end, at most one player from each team can sweep a running stone at any time; for the non‑delivering team this is limited to the skip or vice‑skip.

Stones in play, scoring, and “hammer”

  • If a stone touches the side boards or crosses the back line, it is out of play and removed.
  • After all stones in an end have been thrown, only stones in the house (touching or inside the outer ring) can score.
  • The scoring team gets one point for each stone that is closer to the button than the opponent’s closest stone.

The “hammer” is last‑stone advantage in an end.

  • The hammer is usually decided by a pre‑game draw‑to‑the‑button shootout.
  • The team that scores in an end gives up the hammer for the next end; if the non‑hammer team scores, it is often called a “steal,” and the other team keeps the hammer.

Free Guard Zone and mixed doubles twist

In traditional four‑player Olympic curling, the Free Guard Zone rule applies:

  • For the first part of each end (through the first five stones thrown in many current rule sets), stones that lie between the hog line and the tee line but are not in the house (guards) cannot be removed from play by the opponent.
  • If a team illegally removes an opponent’s guard during this period, the stones are replaced to their previous positions and the delivered stone is removed.

In Olympic mixed doubles, there is no classic free guard zone; instead, no stone (of either team) may be removed from play until the fourth stone of the end has been delivered.

Additionally, each team begins every end with one stone from each side pre‑positioned in or near the house at spots defined in the rules (often called Position A and Position B), and teams can call a “power play” once per game to move the positioned stones to the side of the sheet.

Touched and displaced stones

  • If the delivering team accidentally touches its own moving stone after the hog line, that stone is removed from play immediately by that team.
  • If the non‑delivering team or an outside influence disturbs a moving stone, umpires and skips either replace stones to a mutually agreed position or let the non‑offending team decide how to proceed, under WCF rules.
  • Similar procedures apply if stationary stones are displaced; they are generally restored to their previous estimated positions.

Competition format at the Olympics

  • Events begin with a round‑robin, where each team plays all or most other teams in its group.
  • Final standings are based on win–loss records; tiebreak procedures (head‑to‑head, draw‑shot challenge, or extra tiebreak games) follow WCF and Olympic regulations.
  • The top four teams advance to semifinals; winners play for gold, losers for bronze.

Recent and “latest news” angles

As of early 2026, Olympic curling continues under updated WCF “Rules of Curling and Rules of Competition,” which are periodically revised (for example, with changes to thinking‑time management or draw‑shot procedures) but keep the core rules above intact.

Coverage leading into and during recent Winter Games has focused on the mixed doubles format, time‑clock pressure at the elite level, and strategic use of the power play, but these do not fundamentally change the basic rules spectators need to understand.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.