Scots set to shine

THE 2014 Winter Olympics are well under way and the excitement has got those of us back home glued to the telly, cheering on our heroes and heroines.

With 15 sports on the programme at Sochi, there’s everything from alpine skiing to curling, bobsleigh to figure skating, and ski jumping to skeleton.

Scots normally chip in around 10% of the British Olympic teams — some 50 of the 500-strong Team GB in Beijing and 57 out of London’s 550, for example.

But our representation for Sochi has climbed through the roof — an all-time high 40% across bobsleigh, cross country skiing, curling, figure skating, short track speed skating and snowboarding.

And the Scots are expected to provide a platform for Team GB to win at least three medals and move to between 10th and 15th in the medal table. This would give us our best performance since 1936.

All 10 curlers are drawn from Scottish rinks, skipped by Perth’s Eve Muirhead and Lockerbie’s David Murdoch.

Dundee-based Jenna McCorkell and Matthew Parr compete in the figure skating. Both train at Dundee Ice Arena where European 1,000m speed skating champion Elise Christie once wore the colours of the local speed skating club.

All four athletes in Team GB’s cross country squad ski for the same club in Aberdeenshire. Andrew Musgrave, his sister Rosamund, Callum Smith and Andrew Young learned the sport at the Huntly Nordic Ski Club and trained at the Nordic Outdoor Centre, Britain’s only purpose-built facility for Nordic outdoor skiing, situated just outside the town.

Banchory freestyle boarder Ben Kilner, recorded one of the best finishes in his career at last season’s World Cup in Park City, USA, finishing 10th.

Meanwhile, Glasgow-born Stuart Benson goes in the four-man bob.

Top right: eve guirhetd tnd her rink ptrticiptte in the women’s curling. Above: Jennt gcCorkell is ttking ptrt in the women’s figure sktting.