Olympic and Paralympic squads announced

The squads for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver in 2010 were announced by British Curling today. Six men, six women and six wheelchair athletes have been selected for each squad.

The men are Euan Byers, Ewan MacDonald, David Murdoch, Peter Smith, Warwick Smith and Craig Wilson.

The women are Karen Addison, Lynn Cameron, Jackie Lockhart, Eve Muirhead, Lorna Vevers and Kelly Wood.

Tom Killin, Rosemary Lenton, Angie Malone, Michael McCreadie, Aileen Neilsen and Jim Sellar are the wheelchair curlers.

The full press release can be found here.

British Curling announced its performance plan on July 27 last year. This called for the selection of small squads, with a maximum of eight athletes in each. In the event, only six athletes have been selected for each squad. The plan calls for each squad to be reduced to five in May 2009.

Here are photos of the curlers some of whom will be wearing British colours at the Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics:

David Murdoch photo by Bob from the 2007 Europeans in Fussen

Peter Smith photo by Bob from the 2007 Europeans in Fussen

Euan Byers photo by Bob from the 2007 Europeans in Fussen

Warwick Smith photo by Bob from the Scottish Championship

Ewan MacDonald photo by Bob from the 2006 Scottish Championship

Craig Wilson photo by Richard Gray from the 2007 European Qualifying Competition

Kelly Wood photo by Bob from the 2007 Europeans in Fussen

Jackie Lockhart photo by Bob from the 2007 Europeans in Fussen

Lorna Vevers photo by Bob from the 2007 Europeans in Fussen

Lynn Cameron photo by Hugh Stewart from the 2008 Worlds in Vernon

Karen Addison photo by Hugh Stewart from the 2008 Worlds in Vernon

Eve Muirhead photo by Bob from the World Junior Championships in Ostersund

Michael McCreadie photo by Bob after the 2007 World Wheelchair Curling Championship

Angie Malone photo by Bob from the 2008 Scottish Wheelchair Championship

Aileen Neilsen photo by Bob from a training day at the Galleon in 2007

Pic of Jim Sellar and Rosemary Lenton from the 2008 Scottish Wheelchair Championship by Bob

Tom Killin photo by Bob from a British team training day at Braehead in 2006

Wheels wind up at Inverness

Those of you that have been following the results of the World Wheelchair Curling Qualifying Competition at Inverness will have already seen that Sweden, skipped by Jalle Jungnell (above right), and Italy, skipped by Andrea Tabanelli (above left), have qualified, after tiebreakers, for the World event at Sursee in February. All the results are here.

I hear that the website received more than 60,000 hits during the event, reflecting the growing interest in wheelchair curling. By all accounts the event was a great success, good for wheelchair curling, for Scotland, for Inverness, and for the Inverness rink where some one hundred and twenty volunteers came together to assist in all sorts of ways.

Well done to all involved on and off the ice and to the 'big banana' Tom Pendreigh (below) who headed up the organising committee!

Photos by Bob.

More Wheels at Inverness

As promised here are a few more pics from Inverness: from top, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic and China. Find the results here. The event winds up on Friday when we will know which two of the nine teams at Inverness will be joining eight others (including Scotland) in Sursee in February for the World Wheelchair Curling Championship. The competitors are impressive, and a special mention to all the volunteers who are helping out this week at the Inverness Ice Centre. Great job!

Wheels at Inverness

OK, so I'm still at Inverness. The hospitality is so great up here I'm loathe to get down the road and back to work! Anyway, this was the first day of the World Wheelchair Qualifying Competition, and colourful and exciting it was - although somewhat quiet as wheelchair curling is wont to be with no sweeping!

You can find all the results here. And here are a few pics to give you a flavour of the event.

Top: Ian Walkenshaw of Team England. Below: Jalle Jungnell of Sweden; German skip Jens Jager; Eugeniusz Blaszczak of Poland is today's caption competition. (Apologies if I have names wrong) I'll try and post a few more pics tomorrow, then I REALLY must get back to putting December's Scottish Curler together!

It's all happening at Inverness

It's a massive week ahead for the Inverness Ice Centre as the rink hosts the World Wheelchair Curling Championship Qualifying Competition, the first time that a World Curling Federation competition has ever been held in Inverness.

Bulgaria was a late withdrawal leaving nine countries to fight it out for the two places at Sursee in February next year. China is the newest country to join the wheelchair curling family. That country's team has travelled from Harbin in northern China to compete at Inverness. In the photo above that's Guangqin Xu practising at the rink this evening.

Play begins tomorrow (Monday) at 10.30 and continues through to Friday. An army of volunteers is on hand to make the visitors' stay as pleasant as possible. If you are near the rink, do drop in and give the players your support too. The results can be found here.

It was the Skins weekend at Inverness. Sponsored this year by Ross-shire Engineering (with lots of other support) the event was a success both on and off the ice! I was pleased to see that Bob Kelly's 'old codgers' team (mentioned in yesterday's blog and containing Scottish Curler correspondent and columnist Robin Copland as well as Gordon Muirhead and Tom Pendreigh) actually managed to reach the semifinals. However, the grand final was between Alan Smith's National Academy team of Neil MacArthur, David Reid and Mark Fraser and an interesting concoction of players skipped by Richard Goldie with Ian MacDonald at third, second duties being shared by Gordon Craic and Neil Hampton, with Brian Binnie, in whose name the team was, at lead.

Skins is a game played best by the wiley and crafty and Goldie's side held Smith to the very last skin of the final. Smith stole that end though and won the game £215 to £85.

Above: Alan Smith and Richard Goldie in the final. David Maclennan of Ross-shire Engineering presents the trophy to (L-R) Alan Smith, Neil MacArthur, David Reid and Mark Fraser. Photos by Bob.

Inverness hosts world wheelchair qualifying competition

The Inverness Ice Centre is the focus of the wheelchair curling world next week, as the rink hosts the prequalifying competition for the World Wheelchair Curling Championship, set for Sursee, Switzerland, February 2-9, 2008. Ten countries (Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden) will battle for two places at the world event.

Norway, Switzerland, Scotland, Canada, Japan, USA, Korea and Russia are already qualified for Sursee by virtue of finishing in the top eight at the most recent World event at Solleftea, Sweden, last season.

Improvements to the Inverness rink have included the installation of a lift and that will allow wheelchair access to the lounge area.

The Inverness rink also holds the popular Skins competition this weekend, and no sooner has the final of that event finished than the ice becomes available for the wheelchair teams to practise on Sunday evening. The complete wheelchair results should be available here on the World Curling Federation site, and the individual game results should be on the Inverness Ice Centre site (follow link to News). The first round games are at 10.30 Monday morning. The draw is Bulgaria v China, Czech Republic v Denmark, England v Finland, Germany v Italy, Poland v Sweden.

The Italian team in action at last season's world wheelchair championship prequalifying event at Braehead. Photo by Hugh Stewart.

By the way, have you noticed that the WCF site has had a makeover?