Photographic Moment

Bringing Home the Gold

When she’s not in the lab, National Cancer Institute (NCI) Staff Scientist Naomi Huang (second from left) is sliding heavy polished granite stones across a sheet of ice in a sport called curling. She’s on the Chinese Taipei women’s curling team, which recently won a gold medal at the 2022 Pan Continental Curling Championship held in Calgary Olympic Park in Calgary (Alberta, Canada). Huang, who works in NCI’s Developmental Therapeutics Branch, has been playing for two years with the Laurel Curling Club (Laurel, Maryland) that includes other NIHers. She only gets together with her Chinese Taipei teammates a couple of times a year to practice because they all live across the United States and Canada. In the championship game, the team beat the Mexico women’s team by 8-7, and advanced from the B Division to next season’s A Division.

“As a new player, it’s amazing to be playing on a world stage against other countries like mine where curling is a developing sport,” said Huang who’s from Taiwan. “But it’s also terrifying to be playing in Division A next year. We will need to put in much more training to play our best, but we will do our best.” Countries that compete in the World Curling Championships can also compete for spots in the Olympics.