Duo's delight to be back on ice
Two years after claiming Scotland’s first-ever World Mixed Doubles Championship title, Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat will return to the event after their Scottish Mixed Doubles Championship win earned them selection for the trip to Korea next month.
The pair will be in the unusual position of making up for missing out on getting the chance to defend the title they won, while still heading into the competition as defending champions since Bobby Lammie and Eve Muirhead won it last year, having beaten Dodds and Mouat to the 2022 Scottish title and, in turn, World Championships selection.
With Olympic gold medallist Dodds having taken a sabbatical from the team game following that triumph in Beijing, returning to the World Mixed Doubles Championships has been her principal goal this season and she is determined to do everything possible to secure a hat-trick of medals.
“The past two Mixed Doubles World Championships have been won by Scotland, the first one by us in Aberdeen which was really special, then Eve and Bobby winning it last year, going undefeated which was an amazing achievement, ”she said.
“We’re just looking to go out there, play our best, aim to make the play-offs and hopefully be in a similar position to two years ago.
“We don’t just want to go there to compete, we want to go there and try to win.
“It’ll be exciting going over to Korea.
“I’ve never been there and I don’t think Bruce has either, but we’re very used to travelling to different parts of the world and competing, so you just need to get used to arena as quickly as possible and figure out the ice conditions, which again we are used to.”
While Dodds has been concentrating on mixed doubles throughout this season, she has also been selected as the fifth player supporting Team Morrison who will represent Scotland at the Women’s World Championships in Sweden which gets underway next weekend.
Mouat looked ahead to what will be a challenging few weeks as he pursues both the men’s and mixed doubles titles, dealing with considerable travel and time zone changes.
“Scotland’s had a lot of great success. We just saw the juniors come back with two medals, which was really exciting for both of them and both played absolutely amazingly, ”he said.
“It just shows that all the hard work we’ve put into the National Curling Academy in Stirling is starting to show some really good results.
“Obviously the Olympics went really well with two medals, we’re now seeing that success at the World Juniors and at the Europeans both the men and women got medals again, so Scotland’s in a really good space.”
Dodds and Mouat will be accompanied by Greg Drummond who is aiming for a personal golden hat-trick having previously coached them in 2022, as well as Muirhead and Lammie last year. Drummond will be supported by Paralympic head coach Sheila Swan.