British Curling’s performance foundation athletes Team Blair were briefly split up at the weekend, but underwent a shared experience as all five of them reached the finals of the events they were contesting. 
Regular third Lisa Davie had been selected to represent Scotland at the World Mixed Curling Championships in Aberdeen where the team skipped by Cammy Bryce claimed a silver medal, losing to Canada in the final.
Meanwhile teammates Lucy Blair, Alex Mackintosh, Susie Smith and Holly Hamilton headed across Europe to take part in the Latvian International Challenger where they qualified for the play-offs after losing two of their group matches to Turkey’s Team Yildiz and Hungary’s Team Halasz.
In the quarter-finals they turned on the style, recovering from an early deficit to beat Norway’s Team Mesloe 10-3, before gaining revenge over Yildiz with a 6-3 win in the semi-final. The final was a keenly contested affair, with the Scots stealing at the seventh end to level the match at 5-5 heading down the last, Swiss skip Corrie Hurlimann had to play a pressurised final stone to win the title.
“This weekend was quite tough, we had a few really tight games in the group stage that didn’t go our way however we finished second in our group which meant we faced Team Mesloe in the quarter final,” said Blair. 
“In the quarter final we seemed to manage to pull together and play better than we had been through the rest of the competition. Everything clicked on the ice after being 3-1 down and we kept pushing our way through each end to win the game.
“Facing Team Turkey again in the semi-finals was a good way for us to gain confidence going into the final after losing to them previously in the competition.
“The final against a strong opponent was a close game overall. Team Hürlimann, from Switzerland had to make a tough last stone to win the game.”
The 22-year-old skip was consequently very pleased with the week’s work by all her team members.
“Congratulations to Lisa and her team on their world mixed silver medal and we are really happy with our results from this weekend, too,” she said. 
“We learned a lot from the games which we are looking forward to working on in training and bringing into practice at our next competition in Tallinn.”
The Latvian International Challenge results.
Team Blair (at Latvian International Challenge)
Lucy Blair
Alex Mackintosh
Susie Smith
Holly Hamilton
Photos courtesy of Juris Bērziņš-Soms, Latvian International Challenger.
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