As Team Connal navigated towards Gangneung by bullet train earlier this week, the excitement for what lay ahead intensified.
Perth curler Graeme Connal has arrived in Korea with his squad of Mark Brass, Mark Fraser and Alistair Scott for the World Senior Championships.
Competing on this grand stage was made possible thanks to a win at the Scottish Senior Curling Championships earlier this season.
With Scotland proudly on their backs across the next week, they are very much on the right track to continue a recent success story.
“We decided we would take a couple of extra days beforehand to recover from the time difference,” said Graeme, who arrived in Seoul via a pit-stop in Doha.
“It is all starting to feel like something is about to happen. It was actually 30 degrees when we were in Seoul, which is quite unusual when you know you are going curling!
“We headed over to Gangneung on the bullet train. That was a couple of hours.”
The train of thought for Team Connal is very much to successfully navigate through the early round robin group stage. Their first game is against United States tomorrow (Saturday).
Also in the group are Australia, Estonia, Ireland, Norway, Slovenia and Wales.
Preparations have been going well and Graeme said: “We played at the Aberdeen Open around a month ago and managed to get to the final.
“That was a pretty decent performance from us and the ice was very good.
“Since then, we had the Perth Finals night and, in the last two weeks, all four of us have been down at the National Curling Academy in Stirling.
“We’re hoping the ice in Korea will be similar to what we have been playing on.
“Friday is official practice and we’ll get some time on the ice as a team.
“The first step is the section and we’ll be looking to play as well as we can through that.
“If we play like we did in Hamilton at the Scottish Championships, we should have a reasonable chance of getting one of the top three spots.
“If you do get through, then it is into the knockout and the margins are very fine between winning and losing.
“We know there are going to be some really tough games.”
Graeme was keen to point out the support – both verbally and financially – received from the curling community and beyond in the build-up to the event.
The Cameron Group in Perth, Gardiners of Scotland and Forfar Indoor Sports were thanked for their assistance with the trip.
“People have been showing their support, both the curling world and those who have very generously given us funding sponsorship for the trip,” Graeme explained.
“The likes of Pete Loudon and Dave Hay have shown their support. These are people we have curled with over the years. They have wished us well and we now hope to do well.”
