Perfect preparation for Winter Olympics Kyle aiming for a special home success at Dewars Centre
Kyle Smith reckons this week’s Mercure City of Perth Masters is the perfect preparation for the Winter Olympics.
The Guildtown-based farmer swept into action at Dewars Centre last night for his penultimate tournament before jetting off to South Korea to represent Team GB.
Fronting up his team of Cammy Smith, Thomas Muirhead and Kyle Waddell, the former Perth Academy student has his eyes on a home soil title.
Competing at Dewars, where he learned how to play the sport, is always special.
“I would say it’s the perfect preparation,” Kyle explained. “Seven out of the 10 teams that will play in South Korea are going to be there.
“It’s good to get the chance to play these teams before the Olympics to see any strengths and weaknesses - and what we can use to our advantage.
“It’s great to play at home in Perth too. It’s a tournament that we have played quite a few times now.
“We got invited to one of the slams last year which was on at the same time. It wasn’t an easy decision to make but we were trying to get as many points as possible.
“We’re glad to be back this year. It’s one of the highlights for us and is one of the better tournaments on the world stage.
“It’s nice to play on your home rink and you know the ice is always good quality. Paul Martin always does a good job.
“It’s not often that you play at a club facility with championship ice.
“That is the kind of curl and speed you get, which is testament to how good a job Paul and the boys do.
“This week is of big importance to us as we only have two competitions left now.
“If we can take what we have been working on in the past few months, and put some performances together, then it will give us a lot of confidence going forward.
“It’s taking games at a time and working on the wee things to make the small steps in the right direction.”
Kyle and Co recently returned from playing Japan’s Karuizawa International - a worthwhile first trip to Asia ahead of the Winter Olympics.
“It was a really nice place to visit and the people were very friendly. It was an extremely clean country,” Kyle said.
“The ice was really good and for us it was good to get a taste of what we will get in the future.
“When we sat down to plan our schedule, the Europeans and going over to Japan were the first two on the list.
“We played really well in Japan but came across a Korean team who were just better than us on the day. But a couple of shots and it could have been a different story.
“We will get them when it matters, I hope.”
When Team Smith do arrive back in Asia, Pyeongchang this time, they will have confidence of being in contention for a memorable medal.
Kyle said: “We’ve always got the confidence even when results haven’t been going our way.
“We know if we dig deep we can find the right performances to get us on the right path.
“We’ve done it a lot in the past where, if we’ve started Team Smith were last in action at the Mercure City of Perth Masters in 2016 poorly, we’ve come onto a game. We know we can do that too.
“We leave on February 1 to go to Japan for 10 or 12 days and then fly to Korea after that. It took a while to sink in but it’s really exciting and now we can’t wait to go.
“We want to be contending for medals. We always take it as two competitions - first it’s about getting through the round robin to make the semifinals.
“Then it’s a new competition and you only have to win two games. That is the goal.”