While the current contenders to defend Team GB’s Olympic women’s curling title do battle in Dumfries this week, the next generation are looking to feed off unprecedented success at the Winter Youth Olympics and follow in the footsteps of the superstar who led them in Korea.
Callie Soutar, the youngest member of the Team GB curling squad was only a year old when Eve Muirhead competed in her first Olympics and after winning Olympic gold in Beijing two years ago Muirhead was an obvious choice as Chef de Mission of the Winter Youth Olympic team that headed back to Asia, with the curlers competing at the Gangneung Curling Arena which she had graced in 2018. 
So for the 15-year-old from Forfar, the presence of the woman who has dominated the domestic game throughout her life, served as the perfect example of what could be accomplished.
“It was so nice to see her up in the crowd supporting us all through it and it was great inspiration to be able to feed off Eve’s experiences while we were out there,” said Soutar.
Remarkably, further underlining the sporting adage 'that if you can see it, you can be it,' Soutar was a pupil of the same state school attended by one of Muirhead’s Olympic title winning teammates, Hailey Duff and it was also the alma mater of Greg Drummond, British Curling’s Olympic Head Coach.
“We all went to Forfar Academy, so it is great to have this continuing success for the school after Hailey and Greg,” she said.
No Team GB curling team had claimed a gold medal at the Winter Youth Olympics until the Mixed Team combination of Logan Carson, Tia Laurie, Archie Hyslop and Holly Burke did so in the first week of the Winter Youth Olympics and they were matched a few days later by Soutar and her partner Ethan Brewster in the Mixed Doubles.
Carson and Hyslop are both at the Hendricks Gin Scottish Curling Championships this week, as part of the team skipped by Carson’s older brother Orrin, an all-teenage line-up who are getting the chance to test themselves against the teams world ranked third, fourth, 13th and 18th in the strongest line-up ever assembled at a National Championships. 
And while none of the girls who were part of the Youth Olympic gold medal winning teams are taking part in the women’s event, the impact of what they have achieved is obvious as the strength in depth of the British and Scottish women’s game is rebuilt.
Those contesting the National Championships include Duff, who is part of a team skipped by Fay Henderson; all four of Henderson’s 2023 World Junior Championship winning teammates, who are playing for Teams Munro and Blair this week; and another member of the 2022 Olympic gold medal winning rink Jen Dodds, who is with defending champions Team Morrison, the 2022 European Championship bronze medallists.
All of them will be increasingly aware, however, that they cannot rest on their laurels with the likes of Soutar serving notice of intent in observing that: “Winning Youth Olympic gold is a great stepping stone for my curling career and I hope to continue climbing the pathway in the future.”
Images: Team GB/Sam Mellish.
