A Dumfries curler is getting ready to represent the region and the country in the World Mixed Curling Championships this weekend.
Scott Hyslop will travel to Aberdeen alongside his Scottish teammates Cameron Bryce, Lisa Davie and Robyn Munro, ahead of tomorrow’s opening match.
Bryce’s rink earned their spot by winning the Scottish mixed title in April when they went undefeated through the tournament.
Hyslop, 20, was also part of Team Craik which claimed gold at the World Juniors in Sweden in May.
He said: “To prepare for the championship we are all currently playing in our individual teams in Scotland and around Europe.
“Before the championship begins, we will have a few training sessions with our mixed team to get into the swing of playing together again.
“As a team our ambition is to win gold. We want to perform consistently throughout the tournament which will put us in good shape for achieving our goal at the end of the week.”
Scotland will be competing in Group C alongside Australia, Austria, England, Hungary, Luxembourg, Mexico, Switzerland, and Slovakia. Their campaign will start tomorrow when they face Hungary in the opening draw.
Scott added: “In the group I think Switzerland will be our toughest opponents as they are one of curling’s top nations and do well in the other disciplines, women’s and men’s competitions as well as mixed doubles tournaments.
“Generally, Canada will pose us the most threat – the Canadians are always strong, and I expect them to be in the latter stages of the championship.
“It is special to compete in a home world championship because we will be playing in an ice rink that we are all familiar with and that we’ve all had past success at – we have all won the Scottish Junior Championships there in the past.
“Also, we will have a lot of support from our friends and family as well as from the wider Scottish curling community which we will feed on throughout the week.
“Playing at the world mixed will help us in the season ahead as we will gain experience at a high level and we can use that experience to help out with our own teams at other championships that are coming up in the near future.”
The winner of each group goes straight to the quarter finals, while the second and third placed teams of each group go into a qualification play-off.
