Scotland’s five-strong men’s curling champions have booked their places in Team GB for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics.
Scotland has now provided the first nine members of an expected 55-strong British team for next February’s games after Courier columnist Eve Muirhead, along with Claire Hamilton, Anna Sloan and Vicki Adams, were selected by the British Olympic Association at the end of August.
Lockerbie’s David Murdoch, a two-times world champion, three-times European champion and two-times Olympian, will be joined by Aberdeen’s Tom Brewster, Forfar’s Greg Drummond, Prestwick’s Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow from Stirling.
Murdoch, who skipped the rink to bronze at this year’s World Championships, said, “It’s a huge honour to be selected for Team GB. This will be my third games and I am looking forward to it immensely.
“The thing about elite sport is that you never know when your career is going to be over.
“When you finish at the Olympics and your event’s done, you don’t know if you’ll be back at another because it’s four years away. So that’s why I am hugely excited. It’s just such an honour to be back again.”
St Andrews-born Brewster, skip for the silver medal-winning team at the 2011 and 2012 World Championships, spoke of his joy at realising his Olympics dream.
“I’m thrilled and excited to have been chosen to compete for Team GB in Sochi. It’s taken many years for me to finally be selected and I can’t wait for the games to start,” he said.
“The Olympics are so different from our normal curling events.
“At the games we will be part of Team GB. Normally, we would be a small team of five athletes, so I’m looking forward to being part of a larger team and cheering on our fellow athletes.”
Considerable pressure, however, will fall on Scotland’s world-ranked curling contingent.
Britain has won only one medal at each of the last three Winter Games Rhona Martin’s famous curling gold in Salt Lake City, Shelley Rudman’s skeleton silver in 2006 and a skeleton gold for Amy Williams in Vancouver three years ago.