Philippine Curling Team Dares to Dream for a 2026 Winter Olympics Bid
Can a team from a tropical country excel in an ice sport like curling? That’s what the Philippine National Curling Team – composed of four Fil-Swiss players -- are out to prove when they go through the rigorous preparations of vying for a slot in the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milan, Italy. Alan Frei, Filipino-Swiss entrepreneur, economist, curler and spokesman of the team said the Philippine men’s squad bagged a silver medal in the B-Division of the Pan Continental Curling Championships in Kelowna, Canada in 2023. The team aims to repeat the feat this October in Alberta to move up to the A-Division in the 2025 championships.The top two teams there get guaranteed spots in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. Frei, a relative newcomer to curling, joined the Filipino team in March 2023, a year after he sold his Swiss e-commerce business and decided “to become an Olympian”. Sharing his dream are teammates Christian Haller, a two-time world junior championship medallist, and brothers Marc ...