As younger brother Ross bids to defend family honour at the Scottish Junior Curling Championship, James Craik continues to seek to make an impact at senior level as he leads his team into action at The Prague Classic (10-13 November).
The three time Scottish and reigning World Junior champion believes his team is adjusting well to the demands of competing full-time on the senior circuit and is now looking to capitalise on heading back to a familiar environment. 
“I’m really excited to be getting to Prague where we went last year and had a good run,” he said.
“It is always a good event and we are one of the higher ranked teams there so we are definitely looking to add another play-offs to our record and hopefully we manage to push through to one or two rounds better to get to that final and have a crack at winning the title.
“This season we have managed to make play-offs for every event we have played in apart from our first, which we just missed out on in an extra end.
“That is something we are really proud of and shows the amount of work we are putting in is really paying off and even though we have just come straight come out of juniors we are up there to challenge with everyone and the level of competitions we have been competing in so far have not been easy.
“The fields have been really strong and difficult and we have still managed to pull through just about every time. 
“So, I feel we have adapted really well in the men’s events where we are very aware that if we ever make a mistake 99% of the time it will be capitalised on, which means we play with a lot of caution now, but are not afraid to take these teams on and play our game.”
The only down-side of being away this week is that he cannot continue to be at rink-side as Ross seeks to maintain a run that has seen that has seen the name Craik in the winning team for the last three years, with James leading teams to victory in each of the last two after having been part of Ross Whyte’s winning line-up in 2019.
“I am really gutted that I cannot be in Aberdeen later this week to watch my brother,” he admitted.
“I managed to sneak up to watch two of his games just before we fly and they look like they are playing really well and I am really looking forward to seeing how they get on this week.
“They are a really strong team and obviously have two of my old team mates, Scott Hyslop and Jack Carrick, in that team, so they bring a lot of experience. 
“They had a great win in Oslo last week so hopefully they can continue that form and keep getting those wins on the board and they will then definitely be there to play at the end of the week.
“I have not really spoken to him that much about this week. I just said keep your head down and focus on game by game and shot by shot.
“You can’t look at the end picture like it’s painted, you have to just wait and keep sticking together and crack on with the week, but it would be pretty cool to see the Craik name on the trophy for the fourth year in a row and pretty cool to have my brother on it as well especially straight after me.”
Team Craik
James Craik
Mark Watt
Angus Bryce
Blair Haswell
#curling
Images: PPA/Graeme Hart
