It's a fair bit louder than you think it might be, curling.

The sound doesn't come from the 19-kilogram lumps of granite soothingly sliding across the ice, nor the hefty yet satisfying clunk as one piece of stone hits another.

Nor the sweeping, which barely registers in truth. In fact, it's barely audible, no matter how vigorous it gets.

What is most noticeable is all the shouting.

One of the only Winter Olympic sports that could not be described as extreme, curling is instead a fascinating tactical battle between two teams of four.

Each team has eight stones that they slide down towards a target, called the house, much in the same way that bowlers try to get their bowls close to the jack.

They do this 10 times in natural breaks called ends.

The team that has the most stones closest to the centre of the house gets a point for each stone that's closer than the other team's best stone.

It's similar to bowls in that respect.

All the yelling is not.

The reason for all the shouting is, of course, the teamwork and tactical aspect that is so intrinsic to the sport.

Teams group together after almost every stone to assess or reassess their tactical approach to each end.

They then split up to fulfil their designated roles.

How does curling actually work?

One team member, often the skip or team leader, stands at the scoring end of the ice, pointing to where they want to stone to end up, be it an exact spot on the ice, or a point on a particular stone that will cause it to move.

The other three team members are responsible for it getting there.

The thrower pushes off from the hack — a piece of rubber stuck in the ice — and slides along on one knee, holding the stone by its handle and then releasing it before they pass a red line in the ice called the hog line, which is 10m from where the player pushes off.

Getting the weight of the stone right is essential, but the thrower can also put a curl on the stone by spinning it slightly.

The final two team members use their brooms to affect the path of the stone, melting the ice in front of it to make it go further and curl less.

The constant shouting is so the skip can tell their sweepers how much sweeping they need to do.

With three matches taking place at once on adjacent rinks inside the repurposed National Aquatics Centre, there can be quite a cacophony.

"Yes! Hold! Yes!" from one end.

"Hard! Lean on it! Haaaaaard!" from another.

The matches are taking place inside the famous Water Cube, home of the swimming at the Summer Games but re-imagined as the Ice Cube for these Olympics as part of the organisers' commitment to reuse existing venues that had been in place since 2008.

The success of the conversion from swimming pool to ice rink has encouraged organisers to keep on changing the venue from water to ice seasonally each year.

"We used a strategy that we called water-to-ice conversion," venue manager Yang Qiyong told the Olympic Information Service.

"We wanted to build the ice rink on top of the pool and now this ice rink is providing a very good service to the 2022 Games.

"After the Games, we will make use of the conversion of water and ice to different sports events."

Australia does not have any teams in the men's or women's team competition, only featuring in the mixed doubles earlier in the Games.

The mixed pairing of Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt had a tough Games, with Gill battling alongside the Australian Olympic Committee against her being sent into quarantine due to lingering amounts of COVID-19 antibodies being detected during her daily testing.

The pair also struggled on the ice initially, before winning their final two matches of the competition against Switzerland and Canada. That came after receiving a reprieve from being sent home thanks to another positive COVID-19 test from Gill.

In the women's competition, Switzerland is leading the way, helped by an 8-4 win over Korea on Wednesday morning.

Canada edged the United States by 7-6 with a single in the final of the 10 ends to move level with Japan in third.

And much to the delight of the home supporters, China managed to get a win over Great Britain 8-4 off the back of a three-point ninth end.