Four British Curling colleagues are on rival teams, representing England and Scotland as the Mixed Doubles event takes place from March 11-14 at the SD Biosensor World Wheelchair Championships at the Gangneung Curling Centre in Korea.
Making his return to the 21-team competition after his debut a year ago, England’s Stewart Pimblett will this time be accompanied by Karen Aspey who took up wheelchair curling just three years ago.
“We’re really excited and looking forward to a really good competition,” said Pimblett. 
“Our preparations have been going really well and while I have never been to Korea before, it is a lovely place and what a venue. It will be amazing to compete in that beautiful arena.
“Karen and I are a new partnership and I had a great partner in Rosie (Lenton) last year who steadied me and looked after me on the ice. I am grateful for that and hope I can do the same as Karen makes her debut.
“She has shown so much potential in just a short period which is amazing and I would like us to finish as far up the table as we can.
“Karen is definitely an asset to the England squad and has a big future ahead if she keeps going the way she has in such a short time.
“This week we want to do as well as we can and we need to keep ourselves in all games and not lose big ends and I am hopeful we can do well.
“The level is very high at world champs and things have really moved on in the team game, so it will be interesting to see how that works out this week given mixed doubles is still relatively new in wheelchair curling.
“We can’t wait to get started and see what we can do against the world’s best.”
Similarly, the Scotland line-up shows a change to last year with Charlotte McKenna returning to the event, but this time joined by Gary Smith, who has already had a taste of the action in Gangneung, having had a late call up as an alternate for the team event that took place from March 2-9.
“It has been really beneficial to get a feel for the ice here and the lay of the land which I can share with Charlie so we are not going into the unknown, so to speak,” he said ahead of his debut in the mixed doubles event.
“It been great for me and I really enjoyed being part of that team, part from the result, but we are here to kick on from that and to do a job.
“It is great to have Charlie here now and we hope to go for gold, which is always the case, so we just will play each game at a time.
“The standard at worlds is going up year on year, so we can’t rest on our laurels and we need to keep working hard to make sure we are improving every year to make sure we are better than the last season and continue to progress and be the best we can be.”
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England Mixed Doubles Team
Stewart Pimblett
Karen Aspey
Team Coach Tony Lenton
Assistant Coach Rosemary Lenton
Scotland Mixed Doubles Team
Charlotte McKenna
Gary Smith
Team Coach Niall Ryder
Team Leader David Leith
Action image: WCF