World Mixed Doubles championship success two years ago launched a history-making run for Jen Dodds as she became the first Scot to hold Olympic, World and European titles simultaneously and she is revelling in the chance to continue the gold rush as she and partner Bruce Mouat return to the event in Korea this week (22-29 April). 
Their success in Aberdeen in 2021 sparked an extraordinary sequence that has seen British and Scottish teams win 10 titles at major championships in the past two years comprising:
- Olympic women’s gold (Team Muirhead 2022)
- Men’s World Championship (Team Mouat 2023)
- Back-to-back Mixed Doubles World Championships (Dodds & Mouat 2021, Eve Muirhead and Bobby Lammie 2022)
- Three European Championships (Team Mouat 2021 & 2022, Team Muirhead 2021)
- Men’s World Juniors (Team Craik 2022)
- Women’s World Juniors (Team Henderson 2023)
- World University Games (Team Craik 2023)
That run included Eve Muirhead following her then teammate in being able to lay claim to holding the big three titles simultaneously, when she and Lammie defended the World Mixed Doubles title just weeks after their Beijing triumph together, but it is now back to the nation’s first ever World Mixed Doubles champions to keep the title in Scotland for a third successive year.
“It was an honour to have those achievements last year and then obviously Eve carried the mixed doubles forward as well, so it was a really big thing for Scotland to have both of us back-to-back doing that.
“That does give us a lot of confidence, but it’s a new year, so it’s wiping the slate clean and we know what we need to do to get into the play-offs and play the medal games.
“We just need to stick to our processes and how we know we like to play.
“At the Scottish Championships, towards the end of the week we were getting into a good flow, so hopefully we can find that magic again and keep on going.” 
For Dodds this event is all the more important because, in the wake of the 2021/22 exertions, she took a break from the women’s team game for most of this season to focus on mixed doubles.
“This is what I’ve been looking forward to for most of the season,” she said.
“Along with the Scottish it’s been one of my main goals and we achieved the first of those, so it’s nice to be back at Worlds.
“We’ve had a lot of practice and Bruce has had a lot of games, so we’re just looking forward to getting going and trying to bed ourselves into the competition.”
She noted that they will have to find their best form from the off if they are to get off to a winning start since they face the husband and wife combination of former Olympic and two-time women’s world champion skip Jennifer Jones and three-time men’s world champion Brent Laing.
“It would be great if we could have three Scottish teams winning in a row at this discipline, but we know it’s going to be a long week against a lot of tough teams, so we can’t look too far ahead,” said Dodds
“We just need to take one game at a time, especially when our first game is against Canada, so we’ll need to have a strong start.
“Brent and Jen are two great curlers whose records speak for themselves, so we need to come our firing when we’ve got all those tough games, a lot of which will be close.
“All the training in the NCA, putting in the hours will hopefully pay off, though.”
For Mouat it is a case of picking up where he left off at World Championships, having led his team to the men’s title earlier this month, beating Canada on their own ice in a one-sided final.
“Canada are a great team, with a lot of experience, but it’s always nice to start a championship with a pretty tough game,” he said. 
“It sets the mood early and we’re obviously hoping to get the momentum started.
“It’s a great rivalry that Canada and Scotland have within our sport and it’s so much fun to play in those sort of games, when there’s a wee bit more added pressure from spectators as well.”
That men’s World Championship final was played in front of a packed house and he is hoping for more of the same in Gangeung on what is a slightly overdue visit, since along with then partner Gina Aitken, he missed out in the most agonising fashion when they finished ninth in the competition which saw eight teams qualify for the 2018 Winter Olympics
“It’s both our first times in Korea and I’m quite excited to play in another Olympic venue,” said Mouat.
“I obviously watched the Olympics back in 2018 and it looked like an amazing place, so we’re really looking forward to getting our chance to play in that sort of arena.
“It looks like it’s going to have a decent seating area, so hopefully there’s a crowd to enjoy playing in front of.”
The competition gets underway in the early hours of Saturday morning UK-time, with six days of round-robin matches ahead of the play-offs next Friday and Saturday.
WATCH LIVE games from Recast’s The Curling Channel.
World Mixed Doubles Curling Championships.
Schedule and Results:
Saturday 22 April
Session 1 – 2.00am
Scotland – Canada
Session 3 – 10.00am
Scotland – Denmark
Sunday 23 April
Session 5 – 6.00am
Scotland – Netherlands
Monday 24 April
Session 7 – 2.00am
Scotland – Korea
Session 9 – 10.00am
Scotland – Italy
Tuesday 25 April
Session 11 – 6.00am
Scotland – Estonia
Wednesday 26 April
Session 13 – 2.00am
Scotland – Hungary
Session 15 – 10.00am
Scotland – Australia
Thursday 27 April
Session 17 – 6.00am
Scotland – Czech Republic
Friday 28 April
Qualification Games – 2.00am
Semi Final – 10.00am
Saturday 29 April
BRONZE Medal Game 2.00am
GOLD Medal Game 6.00am
Scotland MD Team
Jen Dodds
Bruce Mouat
Greg Drummond (MD Team Coach)
Sheila Swan (Coach)
Images: WCF/Celine Stucki & Team GB/David Pearce
#curling #WMDCC2023
