ENGINEERS at Dyson’s Malmesbury headquarters got into the Olympic spirit this week, inspired by the performance of the British curling teams in Sochi.

They decided to test whether one of their new digital motor vacuums could make the job of sweeping the ice ahead of the stone a little less frantic.

“Everything from speed-skating to the luge relies on fundamental engineering principals.,” said a spokesman for the company. “Unsurprisingly, the engineers at Dyson have become hooked on this combination of sport and engineering whilst watching the Winter Olympics after work.

“When watching the curling they noticed how inefficient and tiring sweeping the ice looked. They set out to offer a solution.”

Sweeping the ice removes a top layer of gritty ice and creates a thin film of water that speeds the stone up and improves accuracy. They believed the DC59 was the right machine for the job and went to the UK’s only curling lane at Tunbridge Wells to test out their theory.

However the firm warned people not to try it at home because the vacuum was not designed to suck up water.