No gold but Scotland set new world record

We might not have got a gold medal at Braehead last weekend but there was the consolation of a world record!

For myself and Anna Sloan it was our seventh medal at seven straight European Championships, which has never been done before at a major championships, I’ve been told.

You hear in all sports that athletes are always looking for consistency, so it’s really satisfying to be able to produce stats like that.

We were also very consistent in last week’s tournament.

We won all of our round-robin matches and it took one of the best performances the Russian team will have produced to beat us in the semifinals. There’s no getting away from the fact that it was a huge disappointment at the time, but I’m really proud of the team being able to refocus a couple of hours later to make sure we won the bronze.

If you look back on the numbers for the week we were third with a 10 and one record, second had nine and two, and the gold medal winners were eight and three.

The old format would have favoured us. Last year they changed it to straight semi-finals after the round robin, whereas previously the team that finished top would have a couple of shots at making the final.

I think most curlers preferred the old system but the new one is what they do at the Olympics.

With the changes that we’ve gone through our goal at the start of the week was to medal, so it was mission accomplished.

We had a good debrief and we’ve now got two Grand Slam events – one in Canada and one in Japan – before Christmas. And we’re in a good place to finish the year on a high.

Men can build on display

I guess the fact that the men didn’t medal puts our achievement in perspective again.

My brother Glen played really well individually but the team just fell short.

They actually beat all the teams who ended up winning a medal.

If you think positively, that’s definitely something for them to build on and learn from.

Hats off to Jess

You’ve got to take your hat off to Jessica Ennis-Hill.

She’s been given another World gold after the athlete who beat her in 2011 was found guilty of doping.

The most impressive thing to come out of it is the motivation Jess took from losing out on that gold.

I’m sure she probably suspected she was cheated out of it but she still used it as motivation to make sure she improved to beat her in London 2012, whether or not Tatyana Chernova got caught out.

Others might have taken it the other way and thought ‘how am I supposed to get the better of her?’ That’s what champions are made of.

Poor show from Lewis

I love to win and I’ll do everything I can to make that happen but I didn’t agree with Lewis Hamilton disobeying his team by slowing down in the last Grand Prix of the season to make things difficult for Nico Rosberg.

Team orders are part and parcel of his sport and I’m sure he’ll have benefited plenty of times down the years. It didn’t reflect well on him at all that he suddenly decided he wasn’t going to play the game.

I’m really proud of the team being able to refocus a couple of hours later to make sure we won the bronze

Getty. Jessica Ennis-Hill with Tatyana Chernova after finishing second at the World Championships in Daegu in 2011.