Scotland will be represented by competition debutants at this season’s World Mixed Doubles Championship, but recently crowned national champions Sophie Jackson and Duncan McFadzean have very different levels of experience of curling at this level.
For Jackson it is a second world championship appearance in a matter of weeks, having played lead for Team Morrison when they finished in eighth place at last month’s women’s event.
That was their third successive visit to the worlds, while Jackson had previously taken part in the 2018 event as an alternate for Team Fleming, before skipping her own team after they won the following year’s Scottish Women’s Championships.
Ahead of the prospect of playing lead and skip stones, as well as calling the shots in between times in the mixed doubles discipline, she consequently believed that performing those varied roles has prepared her well for the coming challenge.
“Playing at multiple championships in different positions over the last few years can only be a good thing coming into this event, even though it is a different discipline,” said the 27-year-old from Dumfries.
“It’s a nice feeling being familiar and comfortable with the environment but any world champs is still going to give you those extra butterflies and also fire in your belly.”
She and McFadzean earned selection for the event ahead of three former world champions in 2021 winners Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat, as well as 2022 gold medallist Bobby Lammie who won that title with Eve Muirhead and that is feeding their belief.
“Scotland has proved to be a very successful nation in mixed doubles and I think that just shows the quality of our players and how well prepared the British Curling programme helps us to be,” said Jackson.
“Being selected over three world champions to compete at this event can only gives us confidence going into it.”
McFadzean meanwhile comes off a season with Team Whyte that has seen them establish themselves in the top five in the world rankings, but this will be his world championship debut.
“I’m very excited to get going,” said the 24-year-old from Perth.
“It’s going to be a long week, but I am so excited to prove myself for Scotland.”
Their regular commitments have been such that the pair have not had much time to work on strategy and tactics ahead of the Worlds, but having worked together well in winning their Scottish title in February, they reckon they have had sufficient time to get into synch.
“I think us winning at the Scottish Mixed Doubles proves that we have the all the right tools to win against anyone here, tactically and ability wise,” McFadzean observed.
“We’ve only had one week working together, just with timings which is not ideal, but every session we had together with the coaches was good quality and I think gave us confidence for flying out here.”
Scotland meet Czechia at 1pm (BST) on Saturday in their campaign opener in Oestersund, Sweden with medal matches taking place the following weekend (20-27 April).
The 20 mixed doubles pairs are divided into two groups of 10:
Group A: Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Turkiye.
Group B: Australia, Canada, China, Czechia, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden, USA.
Please click here for LIVE streaming of all games on The Curling Channel.
Selected games are also available on the BBC iPlayer, BBC Scotland website and app.
Please click here for more event information and results.
Scotland Team
Sophie Jackson
Duncan McFadzean
Michael Goodfellow Coach
Ross Paterson Coach
Schedule (BST) & Results 
Saturday 20 April
Session 2 – 13,00
Scotland - Czechia
Sunday 21 April
Session 4 – 09.00
Scotland - Korea
Session 6 – 17.00
Scotland - Australia
Monday 22 April
Session 8 – 13.00
Scotland – USA
Tuesday 23 April
Session 10 – 09.00
Scotland – Canada
Session 12 – 17.00
Scotland - Netherlands
Wednesday 24 April
Session 14 – 13.00
Scotland – New Zealand
Thursday 25 April 
Session 16 – 09.00
Scotland – China
Session 18 – 17.00
Scotland – Sweden
Friday 26 April
09.00
Qualification Games
17.00
Semi Finals
Saturday 27 April
09.00
Bronze Medal Game
13.00
Gold Medal Game
Image below: World Curling
