Skips hope sides have killer bite in big apple
Curling skips James Craik and Fay Henderson are hoping their sides can provide the killer bite in Lake Placid, New York, this week as they prepare for the FISU Winter World University Games (WUGS).
Both have their sights set on emulating the achievements of medal winning Olympians with British teams having claimed victory only twice in the history of WUGS, with Sochi Olympic bronze winner Anna Sloan having led her women’s team to the title in 2011, while last year’s Beijing Olympic silver medallist Bruce Mouat skipped the champion team which also featured current Mixed Doubles world champion Bobby Lammie at the men’s event in 2017.
Craik has already matched one of Mouat and Lammie’s previous achievements by leading his team to gold at the World Junior Championships last year and is keen to do so again.
“Like at the Juniors last year, it would be good to follow in the footsteps of Bruce and Bobby, make the progression they did and hopefully manage to pick up a gold here in Lake Placid,” he said.
“It’s going to be a very long week, though, with a lot of tough matches ahead of us, so we’re just going to have to take it one by one and see how we go.
“I think that coming into the University Games as World Junior champions does put a wee target on your back.
“Every team’s going to want to turn up and beat you and will know you, so will have watched one of your games beforehand, so we have to come out sharp, come out hot, show why we are the World Junior champions.”
Their belief in their ability to claim a win has been reinforced by their performance at last week’s Perth Masters, beating three teams ranked in the world’s top 15 on their way to the semi-finals, including Italy’s Team Retornaz, who had won a Grand Slam of Curling event the previous month.
“We had a great run last week and it really did give us a boost, because this was one of the strongest fields we’ve played in at Perth Masters, so to finish off in a semi-final spot was really, really good and shows good promise for the week ahead,” said Craik.
Still within the junior set-up Henderson and teammates Robyn Munro, Holly Wilkiemilne, Laura Watt and Lisa Davie, are also drawing on having performed well in Perth after they only failed to reach the play-offs on count back. We had a good run at the Perth Masters with three wins and two losses against a pretty good standard of teams,” said the skip.
“We just missed out on playoffs, but our performance has still given us a confidence boost, competing well at senior level, which is the standard we’ll have to compete at heading out the World University Games.”
Like Craik, Henderson suffered the disappointment generated by the late cancellation of WUGS last season, but she believes the Games experience they have built up in between times, competing in last season’s World Junior Championships and this season’s World Junior B Championships, means they will be that much readier.
“I missed out on representing GB at WUGS in 2021so it’s great to get this opportunity to compete in an international field and hopefully we’ll do everyone back home proud,” she said.
“We’d love to perform as well as Anna Sloan’s rink did in 2011 and we’ve played well as a team this year. Getting the silver medal at the World Junior Bs this season helps when it’s the same team that’s going out to Lake Placid.”