Jennifer Dodds and Bruce Mouat will both head back into the Olympic arena with unfinished business after being confirmed as part of the respective Great Britain curling rinks in Cortina d’Ampezzo next year.
Dodds, who will return as Team GB’s only defending champion, and Mouat are two of the first batch of 10 athletes whose names have been officially confirmed for the 2026 Winter Games, which will take place in a number of locations centred on Milan next February.
The duo are eager to improve on their agonising fourth place finish in the mixed event in Beijing three years ago, while Mouat’s men’s team, who took silver in the Chinese capital, will go to Italy as defending world champions.
“It’s our second time round and we’ve got a lot more experience than last time, so we’re hoping to use that to get a little bit further,” said Mouat, whose team once again comprises Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan, along with alternate Kyle Waddell.
“We’ve been trying to figure out the extra one or two per cent we need to do better and it came down to sports psychology and nutrition. We really focused on these things to try and get better.
“Even six months after the Olympics we were looking at these things and they helped us win our first world title. Now we’ve established ourselves as one of the best teams in the world, so we’re obviously doing a lot of things right.”
Dodds joined a new team led by Olympic debutant Rebecca Morrison following the break-up of Eve Muirhead’s team in the wake of their gold medal win. Now retired, Muirhead will be in Milan in a different capacity, as Team GB’s Chef de Mission.
Morrison’s team – also including Dodds, Sophie Jackson, Sophie Sinclair, and alternate Fay Henderson, qualified by virtue of a sixth-placed finish at this year’s World Championship and will go to Milan as a curious blend of underdogs and defending champions.
“Obviously we’re going to have a target on our backs as the defending champions, but we’ve played all these teams before and we’re not worried about what they’re thinking,” said Dodds.
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“Every game at the Olympics is tough, no matter whether you’ve come out as the last chance qualifiers or you’ve won the last world title.”
For Dodds, who will again team with Mouat in search of that elusive mixed doubles medal before switching her focus to the first women’s team not to feature Muirhead since 2006, there has been no loss of focus despite being part of the historic success at the Covid-stricken Beijing Games.
“Winning that gold medal was me achieving my lifelong dream, something I’ve dreamed of since I was eight or 10 years old,” Dodds added.
“That was the big thing for me, figuring out what I wanted to do for the next four years, readjusting my goals and getting that purpose.
“I want these girls to experience what I experienced in Beijing. It doesn’t matter if you win one gold medal or 100 gold medals, they are all so special because it is such a rare and hard thing to achieve.”
