Two years after claiming Scotland’s first-ever World Mixed Doubles Championship title, Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat will return to the event after their Scottish Mixed Doubles Championship win earned them selection for the trip to Korea next month (April 22-29).
The pair will be in the unusual position of making up for missing out on getting the chance to defend the title they won, while still heading into the competition as defending champions since Bobby Lammie and Eve Muirhead won it last year, having beaten Dodds and Mouat to the 2022 Scottish title and, in turn, World Championship selection.
With Olympic gold medallist Dodds having taken a sabbatical from the team game following that triumph in Beijing, returning to the World Mixed Doubles Championships has been her principal goal this season and she is determined to do everything possible to secure a hat-trick of medals.
“The past two Mixed Doubles World Championships have been won by Scotland, the first one by us in Aberdeen which was really special, then Eve and Bobby winning it last year, going undefeated which was an amazing achievement,” she observed. 
“We’re just looking to go out there, play our best, aim to make the play-offs and hopefully be in a similar position to two years ago.
“We don’t just want to go there to compete, we want to go there and try to win.
“It’ll be exciting going over to Korea. I’ve never been there and I don’t think Bruce has either, but we’re very used to travelling to different parts of the world and competing, so you just need to get used to arena as quickly as possible and figure out the ice conditions, which again we are used to.
“The experience you gain from going to many different ice rinks and arenas over the years is a skill in itself just to figure out how to get on top of that as quickly as possible.”
While Dodds has been concentrating on mixed doubles throughout this season, she has also been selected as the fifth player supporting Team Morrison who will represent Scotland at the Women’s World Championships in Sweden which get underway next weekend.
Mouat is meanwhile preparing for the Men’s World Championships which start in Canada at the end of the month, so their preparation time together will be minimal, but Dodds does not see that as a major cause for concern.
“Since winning the Scottish Mixed Doubles we have had a bit more time together, but we’re not going to see each other for a month before going to PyeongChang, so we’re trying to get as much training in as possible before I head off to the World Women’s on Wednesday,” she said
“There has been a bit of juggling to do, but with our coaches we’ve managed it quite well and we’ve got a really good balance of time with the teams, but also that time together to fine tune a couple of things.
“It’s not a huge concern for us because we’ve done it in the past. Before Aberdeen, I don’t think we saw each other for a month ahead of that either. We did quite well there, so we’re just quite used to slotting back in together and getting into the groove quickly, so we’re quite used to that.”
They can also call upon the continued consistency of Scottish and British teams in enjoying medal winning success at major championships since the Olympic success, including gold for the men and bronze for the women at this season’s European Championships, gold for the women and bronze for the men at this month’s World Junior Championships and bronze for the wheelchair curlers at their World Championship last weekend. 
As Dodds observed, that reflects the quality of work being done within the British Curling Olympic and Paralympic programmes at the National Curling Academy (NCA), which feeds confidence throughout both squads.
“What we have in Stirling and in the NCA has been so important for both our developments over the past six years,” she said.
“Time on task for us has been so important, which was highlighted during the COVID lockdown time when we could really strip our technique back and had the opportunity to focus on getting that really solid, consistent throw and work with our team as well, fine tuning the dynamics and how we communicate on ice and how we make those team shots. That has been really important for a lot of the Scottish teams.
“Having the gym facility up at Stirling University has also been really good. They put in a new gym facility around two years ago now and that has been fantastic.
“We have a high performance gym there and all of us have benefited from that. We know that you need the strength for your sweeping and also the robustness for a championship and we have taken advantage of that.
“If you look at both teams at the Olympics, we were two of the strongest teams physically and I think that transfers over mentally as well, so what we have is really good.”
Mouat echoed those sentiments as he looked ahead to what will be a challenging few weeks as he pursues both the men’s and mixed doubles titles, dealing with considerable travel and time zone changes.
“Scotland’s had a lot of great success. We just saw the juniors come back with two medals, which was really exciting for both of them and both played absolutely amazingly,” he said.
“It just shows that all the hard work we’ve put into the National Curling Academy in Stirling is starting to show some really good results.
“Obviously the Olympics went really well with two medals, we’re now seeing that success at the World Juniors and at the Europeans both the men and women got medals again, so Scotland’s in a really good space. 
“We’re hoping that Team Morrison can go out and represent Scotland well and then myself and my team can do the same when we go to Ottawa later this month.
“It’s a really good space to train in and it’s definitely helped us climb the world rankings in men’s, women’s and mixed doubles.”
Dodds and Mouat will be accompanied by Greg Drummond who is aiming for a personal golden hat-trick having previously coached them in 2022, as well as Muirhead and Lammie last year. Drummond will be supported by Paralympic Head Coach Sheila Swan.
Prior to the World Mixed Doubles Championships, the LGT World Women’s Curling Championships will take place from March 18-26, while the BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championship takes place from April 1-9.
LGT World Women’s Curling Championships.
BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men’s Curling Championships
World Mixed Doubles Championships
Scotland Mixed Doubles Team
Jen Dodds
Bruce Mouat
Team Coach Greg Drummond
Coach Sheila Swan
#curling #WMDCC2023
Olympic ImAGES: tEAM gb / dAVID pEARCE
