SLIDING OVER TO BEIJING FAIRBANKS CURLER, OUTDOORSWOMAN VICKY PERSINGER GETS HER OLYMPICS MOMENT BY CHRIS COCOLES
M
eet 29-year-old Vicky Persinger, Fairbanks native, fishing and duck hunting fanatic and a world-class curler. Er, curler? Yep, someone who curls. Curling, if you didn't know, is the winter Olympic Games sport staged on sheets of ice using sliding “rocks” and sweeping brooms. It has been described as a cross between lawn bowling and shuffleboard. And while Team USA’s roster for this month’s Beijing Games is dominated by curlers from Minnesota and neighboring Wisconsin – there’s even a debate as to which state is truly the heartbeat of the sport in the U.S., with many curlers leaning towards the Land of 10,000 Lakes over America’s Dairyland to the east – Persinger is proud to call Alaska home and aims to keep it that way. As one of just a handful of Alaskans
Whether it’s fishing for Arctic grayling (above) or competing with the best curlers in the world (left, with her mixed doubles partner Chris Plys), Fairbanks’ Vicky Persinger knows no other way but to go all out, and she’ll get her chance at Olympic glory this month in the Beijing Winter Games. (VICKY PERSINGER/BOB WEDER PHOTOGRAPHY) aksportingjournal.com | FEBRUARY 2022
ALASKA SPORTING JOURNAL
15
