XINING, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Joachim Fritz can't remember which international curling tournaments he has attended. But as chief ice technician of the 2019 Qinghai International Curling Elite, he has no trouble telling you every little detail of the ice that he makes in the arena.
The tournament is being held at the Duoba National Highland Physical Training Base in northwest China's Qinghai province. As an international curling event, the 16 competing teams expect top-class facilities, including perfect ice.
For the third year, that task falls on Fritz, who has been making solid curling ice for more than 23 years.
Each day of the competition, the ice maker and his team begin their work early in the morning by pebbling, scraping and nipping the sheets to make sure that the ice is ready for curling.
"Pebbling the ice looks easy. But when you are actually carrying 15 kilos of water on your back and going backwards at a good pace on the ice, that's a different story," says Fritz as he unloads his backpack sprayer.
The ice makers have to re-pebble the surface prior to each game and cure the ice afterwards. With 64 games scheduled throughout the competition, the technicians have to work around the clock.
But the 65-year-old technician started his job long before the games began, building up a supply of curling-grade ice that it takes much more than just frozen water to produce.
Unlike other ice sports, curling ice has to be perfectly level so that the rocks can curl on the ice, as a 20-kilo granite stone can never defeat gravity and climb a hill on the ice.
"It's all about perfection when it comes to making curling ice," says Fritz. To produce fresh and perfect curling ice, the team spends seven days and nights flooding, painting, spraying and scraping. Each step has to be repeated several times, with the greatest possible finesse and delicacy.
But for the German veteran, each makeover is never the same, as each arena poses different challenges. "There is no criteria for making the ice," says Fritz, noting that every possible variable has to be considered, from room temperature to the number of spectators.
"People have no clue how much work we put in," says the ice technician, who constantly has to monitor the ice and stay prepared for the unexpected. But things don't always go to plan, even for Fritz.
Humidity might be the worst nightmare for ice makers, as the slightest shift in temperature can make all the difference. During the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Fritz was the deputy technician and had to contend with heavy rain, with the resultant humidity leading to the cancelation of one match.
Fritz learned how to make ice from a Canadian technician back when he was coach of a German curling team. He took over the job in the 1996 and worked his way up to the international arena, producing ice at the Winter Olympics and World Championships.
The German also passes on his knowledge and experience to his assistants, Ming Laisheng and Hu Yue, who are working as this year's deputy technicians.
"It's hard work and experience that make a good ice maker," Fritz points out, adding that his Chinese students are getting better at the job each year.
With the tournament's last day featuring crucial matches to decide which teams would finish on the podium, Fritz showed up on the ice early as usual, two hours before the finals began, and carried out preparation work with the same caution he has exercized for the last two decades.
"There are many little things that should be taken care of to make the event better," notes Fritz, who always sets the highest standards for his team and himself. "I would be honored to come back next year."
