Bobby Lammie will make his first competitive appearance since winning the World Mixed Doubles Championship in the company of a new partner this week as he and Olympic gold medallist Hailey Duff contest the Euro Super Series Mixed Doubles event at the National Curling Academy in Stirling (15-17 December).
Lammie won that title last season and, following the retirement from the sport of his then partner, Olympic winning skip Eve Muirhead, he has joined forces with her former lead to take on a strong domestic and international field. 
Lammie and Muirhead’s immediate predecessors as World Mixed Doubles champions, Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat, are in Canada this weekend, competing at a Grand Slam Mixed Doubles event.
However, the Euro Super Series event will feature two powerful Norwegian pairings in Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten who beat Dodds and Mouat in this year’s Olympic semi-final and Ramsfjell siblings Maia and Magnus, who led his team to a best ever Grand Slam finish in reaching the semi-finals at The Masters in Ontario last weekend.
A string of new pairings among players on the British Curling programme will also make their debuts with Lammie’s other regular teammates among those as Grant Hardie joins forces with five-time Scottish Mixed Doubles champion Gina Aitken and an all-McMillan combination sees Hammy team up with Katie. However, the environment will be familiar as they compete on their home ice.
“We’ve only had a handful of games together, but it’s been good,” Lammie said of working with Duff.
“We’re pretty comfortable with each other. It seems pretty easy going, which is nice, so we’re looking forward to seeing how we get on in this first competition together this weekend.
“The fact that the competition’s in the NCA, a place that we train in and know well, will make it pretty comfortable for us as a pair.
“Just being able to be home for the competition instead of travelling to Canada or Europe, where we normally have to go for competitions will be a bit more relaxed, so we’ll just go with the flow and hopefully pick up some wins along the way.”
Having just returned home from Canada, where Team Mouat put in another high class performance at The Masters event on the lucrative Grand Slam of Curling circuit, only narrowly failing in their bid to defend the title, losing to Italy’s Team Retornaz in an all-European final, Lammie is pleased to have recovered full fitness after a broken hand hampered his start to the 2022/23 campaign.
“It’s been a tough start to the season with my injury causing different line-ups within the team, which affected the flow a wee bit as you can see from the results,” he acknowledged.
“So we’ve had a bit of a slow start to the season, but we feel as a team that we’re building now and getting back close to where we were last season which is reflected in the last two events with a win at the European Championships and reaching the final at The Masters.
“We were gutted not to get across the line in the final, where we came up against a very strong Italian team, but I think my hand is completely back to normal now.
“I don’t feel any after effects of the injury, the rehab has definitely worked and I feel like I can compete at 100 per cent again and we’re back into the form we want to be in as a team.
“So, hopefully I can take that into this weekend with Hailey because it will be a tough few days of mixed doubles with a lot of sweeping and lots of games within a short period, so we need to be ready and fit for that.” 
Kyle Waddell, who won a gold medal as fifth player for Team Mouat at last month’s European Championships, will play with Kirstin Bousie for the first time, while also switching gears after an excellent week at The Masters are Team Whyte, who bolstered their place in the world’s top 10 by reaching the quarter-finals before losing out to their compatriots.
They are all in action again this weekend as Ross Whyte teams up with Sophie Sinclair, Robin Brydone with Rebecca Morrison, Duncan McFadzean with Sophie Jackson and Euan Kyle with Beth Farmer and they are relishing the prospect of facing one another in this change of discipline.
“Going from the Slam to the Mixed Doubles is a quick turn-around and a bit of a fight against jet-leg,” skip Whyte observed.
“We’re all looking forward to this event, though, because there are a lot of good teams in it, so it will be interesting to see who comes out on top.
“It will be a tough week, but all four of us in Team Whyte are playing very well, so it’s going to be an interesting match-up when we come up against one another.”
He noted that the performances of Lammie, Hardie and McMillan in Ontario, as well as that of Magnus Ramsfjell underlines the quality of this week’s competition, but believes that as well as bringing good form into this event, his men have set themselves up well for 2023 with their efforts at The Masters.
“We had a very good run in Canada, before we were topped by Team Mouat, who were playing very well,” said Whyte.
“We played some of our best curling as a team at that event, which was very nice on the back of a couple of wins at events in Switzerland and Canada.
“Making it to the quarter-finals of a Slam for the first time this year was very encouraging and puts us in good stead going forward into next year.”
Games will be live streamed on the British Curling Channel via the Recast broadcasting platform.
Please click here for the draw.
