No one can say for sure which is the home of curling, but given that history books record how a monk at Paisley Abbey in Scotland challenged a relative of the abbey’s abbot to a stone-on-ice competition in 1540, the country is in good shape.
At the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix in 1924, Scots stood at the top of the podium. William Jackson’s team defeated the Swedish team led by Johan Petter Åhlén, the founder of the Åhléns department store.
– It would be really special to become the first male Scottish player in 102 years to win, says Bruce Mouat, recalling Rhona Martin and her team winning Olympic gold in Salt Lake City in 2002.
The curling was not a success in Chamonix and it lasted until Nagano 1998 before returning to the regular Olympic program. David Murdoch’s team took silver at the 2014 Sochi Olympics after losing to Canada in the grand final.
Bruce Mouat came even closer in Beijing four years ago when he lost in a tiebreak to Sweden and back Niklas Edin in what is considered the best championship game of all time.
– If not the best, then at least one of the best. All eight players were at a very high level, says Mouat.
The loss hurt. He says it took six months to get over it. A small thorn in the side remained at the start of the next season, but the team decided to learn and improve their game.
– We knew we had very high capacity, but we decided instead to increase our minimum level. “You could say we raised the floor instead of the ceiling,” says Mouat.
The result came in the same season when the Scots became world champions. It was another World Cup title in 2025 and the team can add 12 Grand Slam titles, seven of them after the last Olympics.
Mouat says he and Bobby Lammie went to the same school as Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan, but it wasn’t until 2017 that they decided to play together
He describes McMillan as the always happy one of them all, Lammie as the hard worker and Hardie as the statistician.
And who are you?
– I’ll just go along with it, says Mouat and laughs.
In Great Britain He has become a role model for gay athletes. In a DN interview before the Beijing Olympics, he spoke about his decision to come out and the fear he felt.
– When I decided to tell my teammates, I was afraid of how they would react, but when I did, it was like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. “The team fully supported me and I asked myself why I didn’t do this sooner,” Mouat said.
He lives with his friend Craig Kyle, whom he met six years ago.
Great Britain, who have won three gold medals at the Olympics so far, will have the opportunity to do so on the next final day of competition. After Mouat played the semi-final of the tournament against Switzerland, the British will face Canada in the final on Saturday evening.
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