Having only been in the sport for two years, Curling Pilipinas’ Alan Frei now gets to tout one of sport’s biggest achievements — a gold medal from the Asian Winter Games.
There were a lot of people left surprised after the Philippine men’s curling team had an unlikely but historic run to the gold medal in the recently-concluded 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China.
[READ: Philippines makes history with first Asian Winter Games gold in curling]
That is, not only did it surprise people that a tropical country like the Philippines could perform that well in the Winter Games, most actually didn’t know that the country even had a curling team in the first place — or even the rules of the sport, in fact.
But the public were hardly the only ones that were caught by surprise by what transpired in China.
Even the players, rallied by team lead Alan Frei, didn’t expect to enjoy the success they did, as they were able to clinch the country’s first-ever gold medal in the Asian Winter Games.
For Frei, personally, competing in elite sport wasn’t something he imagined himself in so soon, after only starting the sport two years ago.
Taking up curling due to health reasons, Frei was hardly at a competitive level at the start of his late-blooming career. But thanks to his teammates, it was something that he was able to accomplish.
“To be 100 percent honest I am as surprised as you are. I never would have thought that we would have made it,” Frei told media, having also narrated his life as a business executive in Switzerland before taking up curling as a sport.
“[I never thought] that we would have struck gold in Harbin. As you mentioned before I just started two years ago. I never curled in my life. That is only possible because the other teammates are really really good at it,” he added.
Frei was joined by Fil-Swiss curlers Marc Pfister, Enrico Pfister, Christian Haller, and Benjo Delarmente, with the Pfister brothers having been competing in curling all their lives.
Despite being a newbie to the sport, Frei said that he is working his hardest to be able to catch up to his teammates.
And after his foray into regional competition in China, Frei thinks he is going in the right direction.
“On the ice, I am helping the team as good as I can. But I am getting better and better at it. And I feel more and more comfortable,” said Frei.
“I think the most important thing is that in Harbin, it was different ice. As mentioned arena ice. So it was the first time for me playing on arena ice which makes it much harder. And getting that experience gives me a lot of confidence for the next games,” he added.
Frei and the rest of the men’s curling team have their eyes set on the long-term goal of competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. They compete again later this year in pre-qualifying competitions for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament.
The team is also set to compete in the Pan Continental Curling Championships.