As the only female curler currently selected to represent Team GB at the Winter Olympics in Beijing next year, Jen Dodds’ focus is on ensuring that she is accompanied on that trip to China by all of the women that she will team up with at next month’s European Championships in Lillehammer.
However as - during Scottish Women and Girls in Sport Week - the 30-year-old from Edinburgh prepares for that campaign and targets the Olympic qualifying tournament in December, she is taking pride in knowing she has already secured her involvement in what will be a historic campaign.
“It is a huge honour for me to be heading to my first Olympics next year and to have Georgie Harland as the first female Team GB Chef de Mission leading us in to Beijing will be a very proud moment, so I am really looking forward to that,” said Dodds.
“I met her at the recent Team GB announcement and I really enjoyed having a conversation with her and I know she will do a great job. 
“It is another milestone in the progress we are making and I am fortunate that just now there are other strong women leading our sporting organisations with Katherine Grainger and Sally Munday at the helm of UK Sport and I hope this paves the way for more women in these roles in the future. They are trailblazers and it is important for the likes of me and others to see that.”
One of Dodds’ earliest sporting memories is of watching Rhona Martin deliver the ‘stone of destiny’ to win gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics, just weeks before Jackie Lockhart threw that same block of granite down the ice to become the first female skip to bring a World Championship title to Scotland.
Dodds followed in Lockhart’s footsteps earlier this year when she became a World Champion in her own right, joining forces with Bruce Mouat to bring the World Mixed Doubles title to Scotland for the first time and she hopes to continue to emulate the Aberdonian.
“I was about 10 when Rhona and Jackie won gold in the same year. I had already started curling but I remember seeing both of them the following season and I got both of their autographs,” she recalled.
“I know people talk about light bulb moments and that was probably mine – I could see two Scottish women performing well on the highest stage and both won gold and I drew a lot of inspiration from that moment. I knew from that day on that I wanted to do that and achieve on the highest stage and seeing it made me believe it was possible.
“They were real people when I met them and it showed me what was achievable with lots of hard work.
“I will very soon be able to call myself an Olympian and that is a huge honour in itself and that carries a degree of responsibility, but at the same time I find the prospect of being a role model very exciting. That someone, somewhere is like the 10 year old me getting inspired by an athlete role model.
“It has been such an exciting journey so far and has taken me around the world competing with the best, so if I can get just one girl into curling aspiring to be an Olympian and keeping fit and active at the same time then that would make me very happy.” 
Dodds recognises that she was lucky to be introduced at an early age to a sport that provided equal opportunities. However, she feels that campaigns like Scottish Women in Sport Week which is currently marking its fifth anniversary, are vital to ensuring that more women are given the chance to pursue their sporting passions on an equal footing with men.
“Growing up in curling there was a pretty even mix of boys and girls at my club. I liked that balance and there seemed to be good female representation at that level from my perspective,” she said.
“As I got older I knew I wanted to strive towards going as far as I could in the game and I guess that is when you see others having to make choices as things start to get in the way of their sport. After Junior’s and U21’s you have Uni or work pressures and as I got on to the British Curling programme I was making lifestyle choices as others were too.
“Curling is my passion and Mixed Doubles has been a very welcome addition to the game. There is no set gender playing order so men and women play together on a even playing field which is a really good idea.
“There is obviously still room for improvement but it’s great to have that balance. In other sports things are really changing now and audiences for women’s sport is now reaching much bigger audiences than ever before. Emma Raducanu reaching the US Open final and then winning the title is evidence of that and when you look at what’s been happening in sports like rugby, football and darts it has been changing in my lifetime. Some might say it is overdue but the fact it is a changing environment is encouraging.
“It probably should have happened sooner but I am just glad it is happening now. It is so important to have female representation at every level of sport. For too long there has not been a balance in that respect, but I am keen to see more women getting the top jobs and there being a good mix of men and women in the decision making in every area of sport and getting the best out of what assets we have available to us and different skill sets.”
She consequently believes that the increasing influence of women in important administrative roles will help with the necessary educational process.
“Women often have to make the choices that challenge them to stay in the game at a high level,” Dodds noted. 
“Often this involves careers, relationships or starting a family and it would be good if we could ensure that at grassroots and elite level we were able to retain curlers – helping them to achieve a good work and life balance.
“(Current Olympic champion skip) Anna Hasselborg is managing life in the fast lane on Tour playing at the highest level and juggling that with her young daughter which is encouraging because you need to see those examples to know it can be done and see what is possible here on our programme too.”
#SheCanSheWill
