Mixed Doubles Time

Now that the Curling Today blog has been going for more than a year, events are coming round which I have talked about before. Although it does seem like yesterday, it was in fact a full twelve months ago that the inaugural Scottish Mixed Doubles Championship was held at Murrayfield. The event was won by Kelly Wood and Logan Gray, as described here. That's Logan and Kelly in the photo above from the final last year.

A lot has happened in the interim. Kelly was not allowed to go to the World Championship in Vierumaki because of her other commitments representing Scotland, and Logan felt it the correct thing to do to pull out himself, rather than recruit another player with whom he had not competed before. Dillan Perras and Judith Carr, who had been runners-up in the championship, accepted the invitation to don the Scottish shirts in Finland. I was fortunate enough to be able to be there for part of the event and if you want a bit of nostalgia you can look back at the blog posts in March of this year.

I must say I enjoyed the format of this new game. Vierumaki turned me from a sceptic into a big fan! It has everything that pairs curling has, and more! I really do believe that the WCF has got it right, and that it could... just maybe.... become another Olympic curling discipline somewhere down the line. It needs a bit more publicity and positive PR though. It is only four months to the World Championship in Cortina, Italy, April 18-26. So, where's the event website? There's nothing. "Site coming Soon," it says on the WCF website. So is Christmas.

But hold on, what's this here? Something is happening in Italy, even if the WCF is keeping it a secret! The World Mixed Doubles is being considered as a test event for the Men's World Championship which will be held in Italy in 2010.

If I can just take a quote from the Italian website, "Mixed Doubles, a new formula in the curling scene, is a new discipline that made a successful début in 2008 with the World Championships at Vierumaki, in Finland, where the title was assigned to the Swiss team of Irene Scori and Toni Muller: a fresh and exhilarating competition that witnessed a challenge on the ice rink between giants of the curling world and new teams of the emerging nations. Technique, pure shotmaking and high-scoring action: these are the paradigms of a discipline capable of arousing and engaging the enthusiasm of the public."

Purple prose - I love it! (And I think that is the first time that the word 'paradigms' has appeared in this blog. We're moving upmarket!)

Has Canadian curling embraced mixed doubles curling this season? They did not last time, and sent two of their Mixed Championship winning team to the World MDs. That wasn't a great success. This season the CCA is again sending two of the winning Mixed Championship team to Cortina, but in the interim they are funding the two players (apparently) on a visit to watch the mixed doubles games at the Continental Cup which are being played, co-incidentally, as I'm writing this (see the results here).

Now, I believe I had a purpose when I began this blog, and it was to highlight the fact that the 2008 Scottish Mixed Doubles Championship gets underway tomorrow (Friday) at 4pm at Murrayfield. Logan Gray will be trying for another title, with his sister Lauren this time. The brother and sister meet a father and daughter combination, Jennifer Dodds and her dad Trevor, in their first game.

The results will be here on the Royal Club website, and Mike Haggerty's preview of the event is here.

I hope the fourteen pairings have fun, because, as I see it, it is an enjoyable, and skilful discipline. And if you would like to be 'aroused and engaged' then hold the Christmas shopping and get yourself along to Murrayfield this weekend. You can always buy your last minute gifts at the rink's shop!

More romance, that's what curling needs!! Mind you I doubt I'll get a photo like this at Murrayfield. This is what you do when you are waiting for the Canadians to decide what shot to play. That's Gyorgy Nagy and Ildiko Szekeres (yes, they're married) of Hungary in the background. And yes, they did beat the Canucks when they met in the round robin at Verumaki.

Pics by Bob.

European qualifiers 2

Two games to watch tonight and they were both crackers! The men first. Tom Brewster took a pair at the second against Warwick Smith, Craig Wilson, David Smith and Ross Hepburn and it took three more ends for Smith to get back on level terms. After seven ends, it was 3-3. Brewster, Duncan Fernie, Ron Brewster and Colin Campbell blanked eight, and with a double on Tom's last stone of the ninth counted a three. They ran their opposition out of stones in the tenth, and had their first point on the board.

Kelly Wood, Jackie Lockhart, Lorna Vevers and Lindsay Wood matched up against Edith Loudon, Mairi Milne, Claire Milne and Katie Loudon in the first of their best of five matches. There was little between the teams. Wood had drawn better to get last stone advantage at the first, and was 5-4 up at the fifth end break. She stole a single, then promptly gave up a three.

When last season's Euro rep went to play her final stone in the eighth she was facing three more Loudon stones. Her raise was good, but just shy of shot position, and she gave up a single against the head. Two down, with two ends to play.

Edith who seemed to have the better command of draw weight than her opposite number, raised her own to lie shot partially hidden in the ninth. In going for the shot Kelly caught the guard and rolled another Loudon shot into the house. Down 10-6, the handshakes were offered.

Find all the linescores and standings here.

World Curling Tour Europe Oslo

Kelly Wood, Eve Muirhead, Lorna Vevers and Karen Addison, team GB, won the Radisson SAS Oslo Cup, a World Curling Tour Europe event, beating Sweden's Annette Norberg 5-4 in a close final. The teams were tied at four all after seven ends but Wood had the last stone advantage in the final end, scoring one shot for the title.

In the semi final the Wood team beat Claire Milne. Gail Munro's team made it to the quarters to lose out to Milne.

In the men's event the GB team skipped by Warwick Smith got to the semi finals but lost out to Norway's Thomas Ulsrud. Peter Loudon lost a tie break to Pal Trulsen.

In a short final Ulsrud beat reigning World Champion Kevin Martin 8-2 in just five ends to win the event.

Posted by Christine Stewart

The two Kellys on Sports Weekly

Did you hear the two Kellys - Scott and Wood - on John Beattie's Sports Weekly programme on BBC Radio Scotland last Saturday? You can find a listen again link here.

It is always good to hear our sport being discussed on national radio. Kelly Wood is no stranger to the programme, and it was great that the Canadian World Champ got up early to go in to the studio and help promote our sport. Mind you she may have regretted it later in the day, as her team lost two games and crashed out of the tournament!

Well done to both girls, they were great ambassadors. If you will allow me an observation though, I thought that John and co-presenter Katie Still were just a bit too 'nice' in their questioning, and I nearly fell of my seat when John said to Kelly Wood that her media training was very evident!

Minister for Communities and Sport Stewart Maxwell was also on the programme and his comments on the sportscotland and Scottish Institute of Sports reorganisation make interesting listening. He also said he would like to give curling a go. I hope the invitations have already gone out from Cairnie House. He would be most welcome on the ice anywhere in Scotland!

The photo of the two Kellys with John Beattie and Katie Still is courtesy of Donald Garden, Producer BBC Sport Scotland.

Mixed Doubles

Here they are! Scotland's first Mixed Doubles Curling Champions. Logan Gray and Kelly Wood beat Dillan Perras and his mother Judith Carr at Murrayfield today in the final of the Scottish Mixed Doubles Championship, and they will now represent Scotland in the first World Mixed Doubles Championship at Vierumaki, Finland, March 9-15.

All the scores from Murrayfield are on the Royal Club website here.

So what's the verdict on Mixed Doubles? Those who took part (friends, partners, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives) in the eighteen team competition enjoyed the experience, and their enthusiasm for the event would seem to ensure that the format is here to stay. Most of those competing had played pairs, and mixed doubles is 'advanced pairs' in a lot of ways. "It was fun," was the comment heard most often.

Even more important for the discipline's future was that it was interesting to watch. The games fairly skipped along, with lots of stones in play and interesting situations developing. The players themselves set up the stationary stones every end, keeping umpires' intervention to a minimum. The ice at Murrayfield was great, with more than enough curl to be able to bury stones behind the front guard.

All in all I would say it was a success! Well done to all involved. Roll on the World Championship! And best wishes to Kelly and Logan in that event.

Here are a few photos from the final.

Kelly Wood

Logan Gray

Judith and Dillan

So who said there would be no sweeping in mixed doubles!

Ho hum!

AND NOW TWO PHOTOS OF SOMETHING NEVER BEFORE SEEN ON CURLING TODAY: SKIPS SWEEPING! Enjoy.

The above two pics are dedicated to the Front End Union! All the photos are by Bob.

Fussen pics 3: Scotland's women

Lindsay Wood

Lorna Vevers

Jackie Lockhart

Kelly Wood

Back L-R: Hew Chalmers (Team Coach), Jackie Lockhart (3rd), Karen Addison (alternate), Derek Brown (National Coach) Front: Lindsay Wood (lead), Lorna Vevers (2nd), Kelly Wood (skip)

Photos by Bob.

Special nomination for Kelly

Kelly Wood has been named as Athlete of the Year by British Curling, the body responsible for the Great Britain team for the Olympics. The Athlete of the Year award is encouraged by the British Olympic Association, and all governing bodies of Olympic sports have the opportunity to nominate an athlete from their discipline.

The nomination for British Curling was decided by a panel based on the results and statistics from World and European Championships in season 2006/07. The nominated athletes from each discipline are invited to the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award ceremony, December 9. Kelly won’t be able to go of course as she is here in Fussen at the Le Gruyere European Championships.

Kelly (26) skipped the bronze medal team at the World Women’s Curling Championship in Japan earlier this year. She is one of Scotland’s most experienced international curlers, having represented Scotland at three World Junior Curling Championships, four World Women’s Curling Championships, three European Curling Championships and was a member of the Great Britain team at the Olympics in 2006.

For the full press release including all the quotes see here.

Did you hear her?

Scottish Champion Kelly Wood was the guest presenter on the John Beattie Sports Weekly programme on Radio Scotland last Saturday. You can listen to it again here, until May 19.

Kelly was a star - she came over so naturally, and seemed so much at ease behind the microphone. The programme's audience is in the hundreds of thousands. If she was nervous, she didn't show it!

Could this be a new career for the World Bronze Medallist?