Team GB eyeing more curling success as Winter Olympics begin

Team GB can win medals in all three curling disciplines with the mixed doubles getting underway on Wednesday

Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds will be hoping for a successful Games (PA Wire)

One Brit has already walked away from Beijing’s Aquatics Centre with two Olympic gold medals, and the second might not even get their feet wet.

With the Water Cube transformed into the Ice Cube, curlers Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds both have a shot at emulating Rebecca Adlington’s 2008 double.

And Mouat, a promising junior swimmer himself, needs no reminding of that fact.

“I remember Rebecca winning her golds very fondly,” said Mouat, whose Olympic exploits will be broadcast live on discovery+, Eurosport and Eurosport app. “I’ve loved the Olympics since I was young. I remember that pool had Michael Phelps and all these amazing athletes swimming in it.

“It’s exciting to know loads of medals having already been given to brilliant athletes in that venue, including British ones, so hopefully it can inspire us to do well out there too.”

Team GB can win medals in all three curling disciplines and there is a compelling case that they will. They will certainly expect to add to the nation’s all-time total of four.

Up first are Mouat and Dodds in the mixed doubles, an event appearing at the Games for the second time. This intriguing ten-team competition will be over and done with inside a week.

The Edinburgh pair are childhood friends after meeting at the Gogar Park club when he was seven and she was ten - Dodds even has a key to her playing partner’s house.

Mouat missed out on qualifying for the discipline’s debut at PyeongChang 2018 and teamed up with Dodds in 2020, the pair winning World Championship gold on home soil last year.

“She’s a bit more analytical than me,” Mouat said of their partnership. “I just like to play and not really think about it! I like to explain things to her, and she loves to have all that information.”

Two of the ten mixed doubles teams are married and Switzerland’s Jenny Perret and Martin Rios are a former couple who teamed up for mixed doubles after their relationship ended.

Like Dodds and Mouat, Canada’s John Morris and Rachel Homan are childhood friends and Australia and Czech Republic make their Olympic curling debuts in mixed doubles.

Completing an esoteric field are Sweden, whose coach couldn’t travel to Beijing after a positive Covid test, and hosts China whose pair have “no international experience in playing together.”

Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat get the mixed curling event underway on Wednesday (PA Wire)

The full, blue riband men’s and women’s competitions start the day after mixed doubles ends with Team GB opening their round robin campaigns on 10 February.

Team Mouat are reigning European champions and world silver medallists, duelling with long-time rivals Sweden and skip Niklas Edin in both major finals.

They are also the first non-Canadian rink to win a hat-trick of Grand Slam events, among the most prestigious prizes in the sport.

The key to Mouat’s success lies in a flat management structure, to borrow a corporate cliche.

“Some skips try to take control and run the team based on what they say goes,” said third Bobby Lammie. “It’s a traditional thing in curling that the skip makes all the calls and we’re moving away from that.

“Bruce tries to bring us in as four, which is more powerful than him making all the calls on his own. If you get the communication right, four minds are better than one.”

One of the biggest caveats to all this is that only one of Team GB’s ten curlers have ever been to an Olympics before.

That one is Eve Muirhead, one of four British athletes chalking up a fourth Games appearance alongside skiers Dave Ryding, Andrew Musgrave and Andrew Young.

Her Olympic story is a fascinating one; debuting in Vancouver aged 19, the youngest skip to ever medal with silver in Sochi, and then an agonising near miss with fourth in PyeongChang.

After a tough lockdown, Muirhead and team missed out on the top six at the 2021 World Championships and had only one further chance to qualify for Beijing.

That’s when they moved to a squad selection system - where all nine full-time female curlers, including Muirhead - had to win their place on the team all over again.

“It was daunting, it was like entering into the unknown,” said Dodds, who continued Team Muirhead alongside Vicky Wright with new lead Hailey Duff also making the cut.

In their first tournament together, they won the European title, Muirhead’s third and first since 2017, going on to win the last chance Olympic Qualifier outright.

“There were a few people from other countries who turned their noses up at the system we used,” said Muirhead. “But when they see the results are so good, what are they going to do, praise it?

“We had to battle hard with our friends to prove we were good enough. It’s a relief to know that was worthwhile.”

A second Olympic medal would make it even more so.

Watch All the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 live on discovery+, Eurosport and Eurosport app