Curling legend Rhona Howie on her bid to replace stolen medal
Scotland’s 2002 curling legend reflects on the success and reveals how she is trying to replace her stolen gold medal
They called it the Stone of Destiny. But who could foretell what would unfold following the throw heard all around the world.
Former curler Rhona Howie’s life is so often boiled down to one moment on a day of days in Utah. This is particularly the case now, when she is back in the public eye and memories of her gold medal-winning shot in 2002 are inevitably stirred. “All you ever see is that last stone. I was thinking this driving home yesterday…”
Already expert at keeping appointments with destiny, she has also kept hers with The Scotsman. This is despite travelling through the night from Manchester to her home in Ayrshire after waiting four hours for an AA call-out when her car failed to start following a stint covering the Winter Olympics from a BBC studio. It provided plenty of time for her to reflect, as she tends to have to do every four years around this time.
“We went through nine round-robin games and two play-off games and yet all people think about is that last stone,” she says. “They do not realise you competed for 40 hours beforehand to get to that point. If I went back and watched all those games now that would be funny. I only have a video of it and I do not have a video player any longer.”
That is not all that’s gone. Sixteen years ago, Rhona Howie was called Rhona Martin. Everything was different. she had two young children, a husband and a gold medal. She has since retrieved a name – Howie is her maiden name – but lost, or at least been robbed of, the medal.
Andrew and Jennifer, her children from her since dissolved marriage to Keith, are now grown up. They are just not near enough for their mother’s liking. Both are currently in New Zealand for an undetermined length of time. Howie, who spent Christmas on the other side of the world with her children, is at a crossroads.
And then there’s the saga of the gold medal won so memorably in Salt Lake City as skip of a team comprising five Scottish ladies cast as “housewives with brooms”. Six million people stayed up late into the night to watch. While few would claim to be experts, curling still manages to leave so many in a trance every four years when it steps back into the limelight, as is happening now.
It took an invitation to appear on the pitch at Murrayfield before a Scotland rugby match following their return for Howie to be able to picture just how huge were the viewing figures. The 60,000 people there that day seemed vast enough. She had been watched by a hundred times that number.
Flag-waving crowds gathered to welcome them back, first to London and then home to Glasgow. They were the first British gold medal winners at a Winter Olympics since Torvill and Dean and the first British curling champions since 1924.
The mantle of celebrity was suddenly thrust upon their shoulders.
There were appearances on A Question of Sport,
Masterchef and even Lloyd Grossman’s Through the
Keyhole. “That was when I stayed in Dunlop,” recalls Howie. “They took away things like stones that made it too obvious!” There was an invitation to the Royal Box at Wimbledon to watch Tim Henman and also tot hegbolympicb all.
“It all took a bit of getting used to,” she says, with reference to a media profile that suddenly shot through the roof. “They would phone up when Scotland needed a new football manager or something and ask my opinion! I am just a curler! That year we went to the GB ball, where we had not been to before. Everyone was saying ‘oh look there’s the curlers’. Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent were like ‘oh you’re the curlers’. It was surreal. It did put curling on the map with other, more established sports.”
It wasn’t all sweetness and light. Margaret Morton, the fifth alternate, complained of being “brushed off ” on their return. “It was hard,” says Howie. “They [reserves] put in as much training and hard work as every player in the team. The fifth player does it all as well then sits on the bench. At the Olympics they had to play to get a medal whereas at other events they don’t. We put Margaret on to get a medal. It was only fair as she had done the work too in the build up. I saw her recently at a party but never had the chance to speak to her.”
Howie’s in touch with her other teammates. Debbie Knox is in Fife, Janice Rankin is in Elgin and Fiona Macdonald is based in Inverness. “Fiona texted me today: ‘Oh I saw you on the BBC!’ ” Howie reports. “She is just about to take her son on to the ice for the first time she was telling me. It is hard because we are all so spread out but we meet up every so often. We do try for wee reunions. This is 16 years, so the next one is 20 years. We had a ten-year bash with the coaches.”
It’s bleakly ironic that Morton, despite complaints of being “cold-shouldered” and fears about being cast as the forgotten member of the team, has a medal. Meanwhile, Howie, who displayed such steely nerves to clinch the title, does not. This is where the stone of destiny slides towards a particularly dark corner. Howie’s determination to continue spreading the word on curling’s behalf cost her the most prized item from her career.
She agreed to lend her medal to a museum in Dumfries. “It was a great exhibition they were having, curling through the years,” she explains. “It was in a locked cabinet. I was not concerned. But then I got this phone call to say there has been a break-in, your medal has gone. I suppose at the time I was like: ‘bugger it’. It never really computed that I might never see it again. As time went on, the police were getting no leads, and then they found them. There was three of them, they managed to get two to court.”
In September last year two men were found guilty of theft and jailed for a total of seven years. Howie delivered a victim impact statement in court.
“I basically had to say what I put in to
ON HER STOLEN GOLD MEDAL “Kids’ faces light up when they touch a medal. The fact I cannot take it into schools and things, that is what hurts me more than the fact it’s not sitting in the house ”