Scotland’s wheelchair curlers recovered from a sluggish start to their third place play-off, to beat Sweden 7-4 and claim a bronze medal at their first World Championships together in Canada.
It was a performance that epitomised the way the quintet of Hugh Nibloe, Gregor Ewan, Gary Logan, Meggan Dawson-Farrell and Jo Butterfield had held firm in adversity throughout the week, having reached the play-offs in spite of finishing the round-robin section of the competition with a record of five wins and six losses.
A fine victory over Korea in the first round of those play-offs, overturning the outcome of the team’s meeting in the round-robin had demonstrated the progress they had made in the course of the event and they then showed their resolve in recovering from the disappointment of losing the semi-final to the host nation to ensure that they did not go home empty handed.
The result was particularly sweet for lead Butterfield, the Paralympic gold medallist who switched to curling from athletics only last year and has now won medals on the global stage in two different and very contrasting sports.,
“Woo – hoo we did it!” she said. 
“That was a good one, it is a good feeling… not our finest game in all honesty, but it was the result that mattered at this moment and we are very, very happy.”
The team had struggled throughout the week to impose themselves early in matches and that problem reared its head once again in the bronze medal match, but their reaction was further evidence of the way they are learning together.
“We started slow which was the one thing that we didn’t want to do and gave up three in the first two ends, but we were fighting hard and we kept that grit and determination,” said Butterfield.
“We started to make a few shots again and we took our own three so we actually went into the halfway break 4-3 up and we actually started to relax a bit.
“We felt that we probably didn’t deserve to be up in the game at that stage going into the break and we now had to turn up as well and start executing our shots.
“That is what we did. We started to make our shots and put them under pressure and they started to miss their shots and it really turned the game around and you could really feel the momentum swing.
“I think when we then stole a two at the seventh end that really did change the tempo completely and we were on top and they were finding it hard.
“We then had to hold our breath for the last end and run them out of stones and thankfully that was what we did.”
Having won a Paralympic title in an individual sport, it was a new experience for Butterfield to be involved in a team dynamic and she revelled in the experience of working with Nibloe, Ewan, Logan, as well as Dawson-Farrell. 
“It feels amazing and I am really proud of the five of us,” she said.
“We are very inexperienced as a quintet, as a new team, but we have shown some real determination and some real potential this week.
“Nobody expected us to do anything here but we believed in ourselves and we dug deep.
“We have had some big ups and downs in terms of our own performances, but ultimately we pulled together when we had to and we are coming home with that medal.
“Although it may not be the one we all wanted it is a great feeling and I for one will take it in my first season in competitive curling. I am delighted to be taking home a world medal.”
She knows, too, that with this result arriving just a year into a four-year Paralympic cycle, it signals that there are good things to come.
“This shows that we have huge potential moving forward,” said Butterfield.
“We need to look at this performance, we need to go back, analyse it, see what the good things were that we did to achieve this bronze medal and more importantly what do we need to do to make it a silver or a gold.
“We need to look at the performances of the other countries to see what are they doing differently to get silver and gold and what can we do to get the most out of ourselves.
“There are not a million miles to go and not a huge amount to change, but there is some fine tuning, there is some execution and there is a lot of self- belief and therefore a lot that we can take from this and actually move it forward.” 
Paralympic Champions China successfully defended their world title beating hosts Canada 5-2.
Scotland Team Results
Day One
Scotland – Korea 4-6
Scotland – USA 4-7
Day Two
Scotland – Sweden 10-1
Scotland – Denmark 6-4
Day Three
Scotland – Latvia 3-6
Scotland – Czech Republic 9-3
Day Four
Scotland – Japan 6-2
Scotland – Canada 1-8
Day Five
Scotland – Norway 6-5
Scotland – China 2-9
Day Six
Scotland – Italy 6-9
Day Seven
Scotland – Korea 6-2
Day Eight – Semi Finals
Scotland – Canada 2-5
Day Nine – Bronze medal game
Scotland – Sweden 7-4
England Team Mixed Doubles Results
Day One
England – Italy 7-6
Day Two
England – Sweden 9-4
England – Latvia 4-8
Day Three
England – Korea 6-5
Day Four
England – Japan 6-4
Day Five
England – Canada 1-9
Day Six
England – Germany 8-4
Day Seven
England – Denmark 8-6
Day Eight
England – USA 10-11
Scotland Team Mixed Doubles Results
Day One
Scotland - Hungary 3-9
Day Two
Scotland - China 3-10
Day Three
Scotland – Slovakia 0-8
Scotland – Norway 6-11
Day Four
Scotland – Estonia 10-9
Day Five
Scotland – Switzerland 11-3
Day Six
Scotland – Finland 6-7
Day Seven
Scotland – USA 6-1
Scotland – Poland 9-8
The World Wheelchair Curling Championships and World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Champs are being run in parallel at the Richmond Curling Centre in British Columbia (4-12 March).
The participating 12 teams in the World Wheelchair Curling Championships are hosts Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Norway, Scotland, Sweden and United States.
The World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Champs participating teams are:
Group A: China, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Scotland, Slovakia, Switzerland and United States.
Group B: Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia and Sweden.
Please click here for more information from the World Curling Federation
Watch games on Recast
Scotland Mixed Doubles Team:
Charlotte McKenna
David Melrose
England Mixed Doubles Team
Rosemary Lenton
Stewart Pimblett
Scotland Team:
Jo Butterfield (MBE)
Meggan Dawson-Farrell
Gregor Ewan
Gary Logan
Hugh Nibloe
Image: WCF/Cheyenne Boone
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