SCOTTISH CURLING MAKES KEY CHANGE TO MAXIMISE COMPETITIVENESS ON GLOBAL STAGE
Scottish Curling has taken an important step towards ensuring that its teams are given the best possible chance of bringing home medals from future major championships with a policy change that will allow a range of criteria to be applied in its selection processes.
In a significant change to long standing tradition, the Scottish Curling Board unanimously agreed that, along with the national championships, other factors that will now come into consideration will be teams’ world rankings, past performance against international teams and analysis of proven ability to perform at the highest level.
Team Mouat brought home the gold from European Curling Championships 2018, © WCF/Richard Gray
The new system will apply to Men’s, Women’s and Mixed Doubles disciplines, with assessments made in collaboration with British Curling, which runs the elite, professional programme that is funded by UK Sport, bringing selection policy principles into line with most other Olympic sports.
That decision reflects the forward thinking outlook of the sport’s governing bodies in recognising the changed environment and demands of an increasingly competitive global game.
“For almost 50 years, the winners of the Scottish Championships have automatically become Scotland’s representatives at the World Championships, but we are excited to work with British Curling in taking this step towards more potential success at world level events,” said Bruce Crawford, Chief Executive Officer of Scottish Curling.
He stressed that the decision will in no way reduce the status and integrity of the national championships which remain the pinnacle of the domestic curling calendar, crowning Scotland’s national champions, while feeding into the selection process for representative teams and providing a platform to showcase the sport and inspire future generations of curlers.
“Entries for next season’s competitions will open in the coming weeks, so we hope this will inform teams of what they can expect before they commit to entering a competition,” Crawford continued.
In recent years, Scottish Curling teams representing Great Britain have won five sets of medals at Olympic and Paralympic Games, including one gold, two silver and two bronze. It is hoped that by moving forward in this new selection process that Scottish Curling can help home-grown athletes to have the best possible chance of reaching the top of the podium.
Graham Lindsay, Chair of Scottish Curling said: “Today’s announcement, clearly demonstrates that we are modernising the Royal Caledonian Curling Club whilst in no way forgetting our tremendous heritage.”
The Scottish Curling Board’s decision was welcomed by Nigel Holl, Executive Performance Director of British Curling.
“This decision by Scottish Curling is significant and one that I welcome,” he said.
“We all love and respect the traditions within curling, but this change will ensure that the best equipped and prepared teams represent Scotland at world level. British Curling works with Scotland’s best athletes and teams 12 months of the year and this move will have a positive effect on our efforts to qualify and prepare for the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2022 and beyond.”
More detailed information has been circulated to our members via this month’s edition of YourCurler, available here
