The work of the architect of British Curling’s development strategy has been recognised with a major prize at The PLx Awards, UK Sport’s annual conference for leaders from the high-performance community.
David Aitken, who retired from British Curling earlier this year, became the inaugural winner of the Pathway Coach Award, in acknowledgement of his efforts in overseeing the creation of a system that has helped reposition the organisation as a global leader in the sport, bringing through both players and the next generation of home-grown coaches. 
A former World Junior curling champion skip in his own right, Lothians-based Aitken brought a lifetime of passion for the sport to the role when he joined British Curling and his work has contributed to a period of unprecedented success for the Scottish and British game.
While Kevin Martin, the losing skip in the 1986 World Junior Championship final, would go on to become the most celebrated curler in the history of the Canadian and global game Aitken, the man who beat him that day, was to enjoy a highly successful business career.
However, Aitken’s on-going love of his sport saw him bring that broad experience to bear when, more than three decades later, he took on the role of British Curling Pathway Manager, following an in-depth review which identified the work required at junior level to underpin the organisation’s World Class Programme.
The job title told only half the story, because as well as shaping and managing the pathway programme, in order to maximise resources Aitken also became its principal coach, directly working with individuals and teams, as well as developing other coaches as a key part of his remit.
His job included taking on the critical role of head coach at junior (under-21) international events and the success achieved has been extraordinary: World Junior Men – Team Craik – Gold 2022; World University Games – Men’s team – Gold 2023; World Junior Women – Team Henderson – Gold 2023; World Junior Men – Team Carson – Bronze 2023; Winter Youth Olympic Games 2024 – Gold – Team event; Winter Youth Olympic Games 2024 – Gold – Mixed Doubles. 
That groundwork has contributed to what can almost be considered an embarrassment of riches in the current men’s game, while in bidding to build on British Curling’s Olympic gold medal winning success in 2022, our top two women’s teams now include players who have emerged through Aitken’s work and pathway.
In all, in the period 2020 – 2024, no fewer than 12 athletes including Olympic gold medallist Hailey Duff, who were coached and/or managed by Aitken have progressed through the Sport Scotland supported pathway programme and into the World Class Programme, receiving APA’s.
Perhaps most importantly of all, on the coaching front Aitken was instrumental in supporting the next generation of elite coaches that British Curling supports through its “grow your own coach programme” – our apprentice coach model, which has reduced the previous dependency on expertise recruited from overseas.
Having benefitted from Aitken’s experience and coaching support, five products of that programme have now been employed, with three of them now coaching teams in the top tier of the world rankings, including Team Mouat, the current number world number one ranked team and Team Whyte, who forced their way into the top three in the rankings earlier this season.
"The most rewarding thing is finding ways to give opportunities to the people you're working with,” said Aitken, after receiving his award. 
“My approach has been about transitioning from youth into the Olympic program and finding ways to transition athletes from that and connect them to the main program has been key.
“My approach has been to instil the values that will be useful for these young athletes.
“The values of hard work, resilience, teamwork, and communication are really useful skills for progressing in the sport, but also progressing out with the sport, which is quite essential and so much more than in the sport."
His determination to instil those values into future generations had been evident in his coaching work even before he formally joined British Curling and was reflected in the reaction of Bruce Mouat, skip of the world number one team, who was coached by Aitken in mixed doubles early in his career and has gone on to become a world champion in that discipline, as well as in the men’s game.
“David was always such a special part of the team,” said Mouat.
“He was able to bring a lot of humour along with a lot of knowledge and he was always someone who would have your back no matter what.
“I really appreciated everything he did for my mixed doubles journey and without him we wouldn’t have achieved half as much.” 
In similar vein Fay Henderson, skip of the 2023 World Junior Championship winning team, paid a warm tribute.
“I think David deserves this award,” she said.
“He spent a lot of time working with me at the start of my British Curling career and during the COVID days we spent a lot of time training together at the National Curling Academy that really helped me with the rest of my career.
“David was also head coach at my first championships, the World Juniors in Jonkoping in Sweden where we didn’t have the best event, but he was always there full of support and encouragement and ideas on how to get us to play that little bit better.
“The next year we went to the World Junior Bs and managed to get promoted to the World Juniors, which we won with David as head coach.
“That is my most special memory of working with him, but I have also travelled to other championships with him and he has a great personality for coaching which is why he has inspired many juniors to reach their full potential in curling.”
Images: UK Sport, Team GB / David Pearce, BUCS.