Valiant battle to the finish

STIRLING CLANSMEN .... 0 NOTTINGHAM GOLD ..... 68 ETHAN CLARIDGE

Stirling Clansmen – down to only 18 fit players – were defeated by a strong Nottingham Gold outfit that is widely regarded as one of the top three teams in the country.

The game was played out in front of a crowd filled with the friends and family of the team’s graduating seniors, Lewis Smith and James Crockford, both men who embody the Clansmen spirit.

Despite the large margin of victory, many spectators who watched the game would argue that the scoreline flattered the visitors.

A standout was the performance of the five remaining players on the line, who put in immense individual performances.

Following the game, offensive co-ordinator Matthew Watt said: “Despite playing one of the best teams in the country and faced with a depleted roster through injuries, the team battled to the end and played hard for each other.”

After the game, Jason Scott, head coach of the impressive Nottingham side, paid tribute to the Stirling outfit, praising them for their effort.

Former elite curler Eilidh Yeats has become the first person employed by the only Olympic and Paralympic programme based in Scotland to be funded by the English Institute of Sport (EIS) after being appointed as a data scientist for British Curling.

This partnership is part of a process of building on the organisation’s long-standing relationship with the sportscotland Institute of Sport (SIS) that has generated rich rewards.

The 27-year-old has had a fine career in the sport, spending three years with British Curling as a performance foundation athlete and continued her education throughout that period, completing a Masters in Data Science for Business at the University of Stirling last year.

British Curling already benefits from the work done through SIS’S partnership with the University of Stirling and The Data Lab to provide people development and bespoke analytic solutions to sport.

However, Eilidh now joins the Performance Data Team, a central team within the EIS devoted to enabling and empowering the creation of performance insight from data in providing data science support to all British Olympic and Paralympic teams.

Having also been a funded curler until last year, Eilidh brings a unique combination of playing experience at the highest level and fresh energy to her new career.

“This is the start of a new relationship with the EIS and I get support from them and British Curling, so it’s brilliant,” she said.

“This is my first role since I did my Masters in Data Science for Business, so I’m really excited to get started and get to use that, while also pursuing my passion and interest in curling as well.

“Having a background in curling and the inside knowledge of how the programme operates, along with my academic background in data science already gives me a head start in this role.”

Involving collaboration with British Curling, the EIS and the sportscotland Institute of Sport support team, her role has the potential to be a true labour of love, since she discovered her enthusiasm for data analysis during a previous role as a business analyst with Highland Regional Council.

“I discovered in a previous role how much I was interested in working with large amounts of data, so that was what inspired me to want to study it while doing my curling, so getting to do them both is a real privilege,” she explained.

While the organisation is the only Olympic and Paralympic programme based in Scotland,

Eilidh’s appointment reflects British Curling’s recognition of the need to make full use of available resources to maximise the potential of both the players and the sport across the UK.

“Curling is an indigenous Scottish sport, so we have naturally always worked closely with sportscotland and that will always continue to be the case. However, gaining access to the facilities and knowhow available across the UK represents another opportunity for us to gain competitive advantage,” explained Nigel Holl, British Curling’s executive performance director.

“While there are relatively few curling facilities in the UK outside of Scotland, our vision is to see that change, building on the exceptional work that has earned the sport attention across the country with a succession of medal successes at the Winter Olympics, where curling was the only sport to win medals for Team GB last year and at World and European Championships.