Norway’s wheelchair curlers break out colorful pants at paralympics

Norway’s wheelchair curlers are colorful, too

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Those wild, colorful pants worn by Norwegian curlers at last month’s Olympics were so popular that their Paralympic counterparts felt compelled to sport the same look.

The problem was they couldn’t get any of the popular bright red, white and blue diamond-checkered trousers, so they found an alternative that was just as good — or bad, depending on perspective.

Norway’s wheelchair curlers are turning heads in an even louder blue plaid pair of trousers.

“This is the leftovers because they sold out everything after one week all around the world, Norway’s Paralympic skip Rune Lorentsen said Monday, adding he was told new ones wouldn’t be available until sometime in July. “There wasn’t so many to choose from, but these are OK?”

That’s one way to put it.

Swedish skip Jalle Jungell scrunched up his face when asked about the pants after a 6-4 win over Norway.

Apparently, they are too wild even for a nation that made Jesper Parnevik and the J. Lindeberg clothing line popular on the PGA Tour.

“I’m very happy I’m not wearing the Norwegian pants,” Jungell said.

The mixture of teal green, blue, black and white did, however, get a thumb up from U.S. third Patrick McDonald.

With tinted shades for the indoor competition, his finger- and toenails painted, tattoos from “my ears to my ankles, and flames painted along — and a skull on the handle of — the delivery stick he uses to throw the rocks, McDonald seemed a good a judge of edgy style.

“I’m a little bit more flamboyant, being from California,” said McDonald, a U.S. Army veteran who lost his legs while on U.S. military patrol in Korea in 1991. “I dig them, I’d wear them if it was a different shade.”

McDonald’s preferred shade involves anything red, white and blue, all colors he wears proudly, if also uniquely. Like the Germans and Swiss, the American team has a stylized flag painted on discs that adorn their wheels.

“It’s important to have the flag or colors no matter where you are from,” said McDonald after the U.S. improved to 3-1 with an 8-2 win over Italy on Monday.

As for Lorentsen, he left the impression he didn’t have much of a choice — about either the shade or whether to follow in the bright footsteps of his curling predecessors and Norway’s junior team at the recent world championships.

“We had to get the pants because everybody is asking about the pants,” said Lorentsen. “When we are out in the city and downtown, everywhere, people stops us and asks, ‘Are you having those fancy pants?”

The pants Norway wore in the Olympics were so popular they had a Facebook page dedicated to them and it now has more than 630,000 fans signed up. The Olympic team presented a pair to Norwegian King Harald, and Lorentsen hopes to present a pair to his daughter, Princess Martha. While her father wasn’t fond of the originals — Lorentsen said the style is known as ‘Clown Pants’ at home — the new look may be better suited for evenings.

“These look more like pajamas, don’t you think?” he said.

Whatever he really thinks of the pants, Lorentsen is sticking with them, even as his medal-contending team, which won gold at the world championships in 2007 and 2008, dropped to 1-3 with only five games left to make the top-four medal round.

There is still time,” Lorentsen insisted, to follow his silver-medal winning Olympic peers. And there is no need to switch up the pants to do so.

“It’s not the trousers that are playing, he said with a smile. “It’s us.”