Both women’s teams on the British Curling Olympic programme are in action in Canada this week, but are taking on different challenges.
For Rebecca Morrison, Jen Dodds, Sophie Sinclair and Sophie Jackson, the Stu Sells 1824 Halifax Classic will be a final competitive outing ahead of representing Scotland at next month’s Le Gruyere AOP European Curling Championships. 
They will be joined at that event by reigning Scottish champion Fay Henderson, but will be up against her in Nova Scotia this week, the teams having been drawn together in the pool stages of this event.
The schedule then provides Team Henderson with a chance to test themselves differently as their skip heads back to Scotland with their domestic rivals, while the remaining quartet of Robyn Munro, Hailey Duff, Katie McMillan and Lisa Davie stay on in Canada to compete in the Curling Stadium North Bay Women’s Spiel.
“We are really looking forward to getting back competing this weekend,” said Henderson.
“This week we have the standard line-up of the five of us and for next week we will be missing me, so Robyn will take the head and lead the team.”
While more than a month has elapsed since Team Henderson have taken part in an event, the skip and vice skip both saw competitive action in recent mixed doubles events in Switzerland, as did Morrison, Dodds and Jackson, with all five Scottish teams performing well. 
“It’s been a few weeks since we have been on the road together, but myself and Robyn have been playing mixed doubles and the rest of the team have been training hard, putting in a lot of hours at the National Curling Academy, so hopefully that will give us plenty results through more technical practice,” said Henderson.
“Myself and Robyn were concentrating on a bit more weight control in the mixed doubles as well, just practising our draw weight, all key things for winning games out here against some of the top ranked teams.”
British Curling’s Team Waddell are meanwhile in Switzerland again this week at the Swiss Cup in Basel where fellow Scots Team Bryce are the defending champions, on the back of a strong performance at last week’s Grand Prix Bern International Curling Challenge.
It is, though, a measure of skip Kyle Waddell’s growing expectation, that after reaching the quarter-finals before going out to eventual winners Team Hoesli, he registered some frustration in the wake of that event.
“Bern was a disappointing event in the end for us,” said Waddell.
“We put ourselves in a winning position in the quarter final but failed to close it out.
“Basel provides an opportunity to put that right straight away.
“It’s normally a good event with good ice, so it should provide a good platform for us to deliver the level of performance we need in order to win.”
Please click here for results from Stu Sells 1824 Halifax Classic.
Please click here for results from the Swiss Cup Basel.
Images: PPA/Graeme Hart
