Scotland and England have announced their line-ups for the SD Biosensor World Wheelchair Champs coming up next month, which will be held at the Gangneung Curling Centre which has just hosted the Winter Youth Olympics and the Para athletes are hoping to emulate the gold rush their British curling colleagues have experienced in Korea this week.
The team event takes place from 2-9 March followed by the mixed doubles discipline from 10-16 March at the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic venue in which Team GB’s youth Olympians won gold in both the team and mixed doubles events over the past fortnight.
Having reached the play-offs in last year’s Mixed Doubles event, Team England will be represented again by Stewart Pimblett who this season will be partnered for the first time at this level by Karen Aspey, who only took up wheelchair curling in 2021.
Scotland’s pairing also comprises a World Mixed Doubles newcomer with Gary Smith making his debut, while Charlotte McKenna returns to the event having suffered the disappointment of narrowly missing out on the play-offs last season.
“We would really like to get to medal matches this time around and it would be great to see our British Curling colleagues also doing well for England,” said McKenna.
“There has been lots of on and off ice training in preparation for our key event of the year, so we are ready to see what we can do in that arena.”
In the team event, Scotland will be represented by four of the five that won bronze at last year’s event with Paralympians Hugh Nibloe, Gregor Ewan, Meggan Dawson-Farrell and Gary Logan joined this time by Paralympic Sochi bronze medallist Robert McPherson who brings a wealth of experience to the quintet, with final playing positions still to be confirmed. 
Nibloe, who skipped the team at last year’s championship, is familiar with the venue having won a bronze medal in the Gangneung Curling Centre at the World Wheelchair Championships in 2017 before making his Paralympic debut there the following year and he is consequently looking forward to returning to the arena.
“I am looking forward to getting back to Gangneung and it has been great to see how well our Scottish youngsters have done this week with back-to-back Youth Olympic gold medals,” he said.
“Those were inspiring performances and it is great to put all of the hard work into action on the ice and get rewarded with a place on the podium, so we hope very much that we can emulate that when we get there next month,”
England Mixed Doubles Team
Stewart Pimblett
Karen Aspey
Team Coach Tony Lenton
Assistant Coach Rosemary Lenton 
Scotland Mixed Doubles Team
Charlotte McKenna
Gary Smith
Paralympic Head Coach Sheila Swan
Team Coach Niall Ryder
Scotland Team
Hugh Nibloe
Gregor Ewan
Robert McPherson
Gary Logan
Meggan Dawson Farrell
Paralympic Head Coach Sheila Swan
Team Coach Luke Carson
Please click here for more event information.
Action images: WCF
