Faceplanting Russian curler reminds us that curling happens on ice

Curling seems pretty great. It is certainly the only Winter Olympics event in which pitchers of beer can be considered a performance-enhancing drug, for one thing, and competitors can participate in something like their street clothes -- or, in the case of the Norwegian team, psychedelic zoot suits.

Everything unfolds with a totally opaque intensity. Someone, who is generally dressed like an employee at the Verizon Store and not necessarily supremely athletic-looking, slides a rock over a sheet of ice. Others chase it, sweeping. There’s some yelling. It looks like a blast.

It can be so much fun, in fact, that even seasoned competitors can forget they’re standing on a sheet of very cold, very slick, very hard ice. Maybe that is what happened to Russian curler Andrey Drozdov, who has given us this indelible #FlawlessOlympics moment. Maybe he just got lost in the moment and forgot that ice is slippery.

Or maybe curling is harder than it looks. Anyway, Russia won the match 7-6, Drozdov is okay, and be careful out there.

(GIF via Deadspin)