James Craik completed a rare double when he led his team to victory at the Fisu Winter World University Games (WUGs) at the weekend, defeating hosts USA 5-1 in a one-sided final in Lake Placid.
Along with his team’s second, Angus Bryce, the skip had also won the World Junior Championships last year, making them only the second pair of Scottish men to do so as they followed in the footsteps of Bruce Mouat and Bobby Lammie, 
Up against a noisy home support, as well as the team with the next best record after the round-robin stages, Craik missed an opportunity to score two at the opening end.
However at the second, he produced a triple takeout to pile pressure on opposing skip Danny Casper who was only able to remove one of the three counting Scottish stones with the final delivery of the end, his shooter rolling out to leave Craik lying two.
The third end blanked and at the fourth the Scots took a calculated risk, giving US skip a difficult chance to make a double and he didn’t manage to shift the second counting stone sufficiently, leaving Team GB 3-1 up at the break, with the hammer as they headed into the halfway break.
The fifth end was also blanked before, at the sixth end, Craik manufactured the chance to make a double take out for a two that would wrap up the match.
While he did not quite get the angle right, he still scored to take a commanding 4-1 lead into the penultimate end. 
There Casper was left attempting an unlikely looking angled raised double takeout and while he made a brave try, he could only remove one British stone, costing his team another steal which left Great Britain four up playing the last where they duly ran their opponents out of stones to wrap up the victory.
“I felt like it was a really dominant performance in the final, especially after that second end,” said Craik.
“We had an opportunity for a two at the first, but just got caught out a little bit with a fresh bit of ice and came up a bit short, so it was nice to get our two at the next and establish that three shot lead.
“That steal of two was probably a key moment in the match and then forcing them in the fourth was really, really big, getting the hammer back when we know we’re really effective with it.”
In the context of the event, their only defeat, to a Japanese quartet that never threatened to reach the play-offs, looked like something of an aberration for Craik, vice skip Mark Watt, Blair Haswell and Bryce, whose family had a memorable weekend with older brother Cammy leading his team to a World Curling Tour victory at the Elite Challenger event in St Gallen.
“It’s been a really dominant week for us,” said Craik.
“Progressing through to the play-offs was a very exciting thing for us. We knew we had some really tough games ahead of us.
“Beating Canada twice on Thursday, then managing to follow that up with a win against the USA in the final was key. 
“Having the home crowd against us slightly was a little bit difficult, but we were quite glad to hush them after the second end.”
The 21-year-old was fulsome in his praise of his teammates, who also included alternate Jack Carrick and the support they have had off the ice.
“The boys in front of me have played phenomenally and really just proved that we are a cut above everyone else thanks to the British Curling programme which has put us in shape to go out all week and conduct ourselves very professionally.
“Our consistency was the difference between all the rest of the teams and us. We used our hammer really effectively, we gave up not too many steals at all and closed out close games when we weren’t maybe getting everything going our way.
“We stuck together and rallied together and managed to pull through some really tough wins, which was the difference in the end for sure.
“The timeless amount of hours the guys put in really showed this week and we’ve had comments all week that have been really nice, saying how professional we are, how great the front end sweeping strength is. It’s been great to see that hard work getting a wee bit of recognition.”
Craik also identified coach Ian Watt as deserving particular praise.
“Ian’s been our team coach for years now and we’ve all got such a great relationship with him. He is a vital aspect for us,” he said.
“He’s got everything covered, everything dialled down to a tee. 
“There’s never anything missed or anything like that. We can put a lot of trust in him and he offers a lot of great insights and gives us real structure to our pre and post-game.
“We’re a very process driven team so we’re really thankful for that.”
Having achieved everything he can at junior level, Craik is now setting his sights on success in the men’s game where he served notice of intent earlier this month when reaching the semi-finals of the Perth Masters, which was won by compatriots and three-time European champions Team Mouat, whose line-up is skipped by Bruce Mouat and contains Bobby Lammie at second.
“It’s pretty cool for myself and Angus matching Bruce and Bobby in their World Junior golds followed by a World University Games win,” Craik observed. 
“They’ve obviously gone on to achieve much, much more and really set themselves apart from the rest of the world.
“We do look to how they train, how they work and I think they’re fantastic role models for us, but hopefully we can catch them up at some point.”
David Aitken, British Curling’s Performance Foundation Manager who accompanied the team to Lake Placid, noted that Team Craik’s success was the latest evidence of the health of the programme.
“Team Craik built on their achievements in the Juniors and showed that they are championship performers,” he said.
“They came into the event well prepared and started strongly. In a very competitive field they threw in very high level and consistent performances and got even stronger as the week went on.
“The standard and depth within the BC program is very high but this team look like they will be challenging the best teams in Scotland and the best teams in the world over the next few seasons. 
“The work that their coach Iain Watt has done with them this season has been amazing and although they know each other well from Juniors this is a new line up this year, so the thought of what they can achieve going forward is very exciting.”
In the women’s event there was play-off disappointment for Team Henderson, who had performed well through the round-robin, winning seven of their nine matches.
Having inflicted the only defeat on Korea in the round-robin stages, they were unable to repeat that in the semi-finals, losing 10-4 to the eventual silver medallists, before suffering a 7-3 loss to hosts the USA in the bronze medal play-off. 
GB WUGS Team
GB Men:
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)
GB Women:
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)
GB Coaches:
David Aitken (coach)
Colin Morrison (coach)
Iain Watt (coach)
#curling #WUG2023
Images: Jack Hodgetts
