Skips James Craik and Fay Henderson believe their teams are in confident mood as they prepare for the FISU Winter World University Games (WUGS) which get underway in Lake Placid this week (12-22 January 2023).
Both have their sights set on emulating the achievements of medal winning Olympians with British teams having claimed victory only twice in the history of WUGs, with Sochi Olympic bronze winner Anna Sloan having led her women’s team to the title in 2011, while last year’s Beijing Olympic silver medallist Bruce Mouat skipped the champion team which also featured current Mixed Doubles world champion Bobby Lammie at the men’s event in 2017.
Craik has already matched one of Mouat and Lammie’s previous achievements by leading his team to gold at the World Junior Championships last year and is keen to do so again.
“Like at the Juniors last year, it would be good to follow in the footsteps of Bruce and Bobby, make the progression they did and hopefully manage to pick up a gold here in Lake Placid,” he said.
“It’s going to be a very long week, though, with a lot of tough matches ahead of us, so we’re just going to have to take it one by one and see how we go. 
“I think that coming into the University Games as World Junior champions does put a wee target on your back.
“Every team’s going to want to turn up and beat you and will know you, so will have watched one of your games beforehand, so we have to come out sharp, come out hot, show why we are the World Junior champions.”
That success was achieved in spite of losing what Craik had identified as a key opportunity when, having been selected for WUGs last season, the event was cancelled due to COVID.
“Missing out on that was an absolute nightmare,” he admitted.
“We were really disheartened because we felt we were in an extremely good spot and it had been a chance for us to use it as a trial event for the World Juniors, because it was our first major championship with that team, but it’s a new team this year and we’re even hungrier to go out there and smash it.”
Their belief in their ability to do so has been reinforced by their performance at last week’s Perth Masters, beating three teams ranked in the world’s top 15 on their way to the semi-finals, including Italy’s Team Retornaz, who had won a Grand Slam of Curling event the previous month.
“We had a great run last week and it really did give us a boost, because this was one of the strongest fields we’ve played in at Perth Masters, so to finish off in a semi-final spot was really, really good and shows good promise for the week ahead,” said Craik.
“Beating these higher ranked teams who are playing in and winning Grand Slams and challenging them on a consistent basis is showing the progression we’re making out of the juniors and that we can compete with all the rest of these top men’s teams, which is very encouraging.”
Still within the junior set-up Henderson and teammates Robyn Munro, Holly Wilkie-Milne, Laura Watt and Lisa Davie, are also drawing on having performed well in Perth after they only failed to reach the play-offs on count back.
“We had a good run at the Perth Masters with three wins and two losses against a pretty good standard of teams,” said the skip.
“We just missed out on play-offs, but our performance has still given us a confidence boost, competing well at senior level, which is the standard we’ll have to compete at heading out the World University Games.”
Like Craik, Henderson suffered the disappointment generated by the late cancellation of WUGs last season, but she believes the Games experience they have built up in between times, competing in last season’s World Junior Championships and this season’s World Junior B Championships, means they will be that much readier.
“I missed out on representing GB at WUGs in 2021so it’s great to get this opportunity to compete in an international field and hopefully we’ll do everyone back home proud,” she said.
“We’d love to perform as well as Anna Sloan’s rink did in 2011 and we’ve played well as a team this year.
“Getting the silver medal at the World Junior Bs this season helps when it’s the same team that’s going out to Lake Placid.”
Please click here for the draw and more details from WUGS.
GB WUGS Team:
Fay Henderson (University of Glasgow)
Robyn Munro (University of Strathclyde)
Holly Wilkie-Milne (University of Dundee)
Laura Watt (Perth College UHI)
Lisa Davie (Edinburgh Napier University)
James Craik (University of Stirling)
Mark Watt (The Open University)
Angus Bryce (The Open University)
Alexander Haswell (University of Strathclyde)
Jack Carrick (Glasgow Caledonian University)
David Aitken (coach)
Colin Morrison (coach)
Iain Watt (coach)
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