GANGNEUNG, South Korea (AP) — Long before her frightening birth, before the awful moments when everyone wondered if she would survive, before anyone knew how tough she could be, Ailsa Polo's destiny was linked to an isle of granite.
Both her parents were curlers, members of a tight-knit sport where an intense reverence for the game tends to bleed over into the players' personal lives. And so it was only natural that Joe and Kristin Polo decided to name their future daughter Ailsa, after the Scottish island where the granite that makes curling rocks is mined.
The Polos couldn't have foreseen how fortuitous her name would be.