It’s that time of year when everybody will be looking back on the highs and lows of 2017 and thinking about what they want to achieve in 2018.
From my own personal point of view both are easy answers.
The highlight of this year came pretty late on and was our European Championship gold medal.
A few months before the Winter Olympics, it really couldn’t have come at a better time.
If we hadn’t won gold, I would have still been pretty happy with the year because we were very consistent in the grand slams and the major championships. Also, bedding in a new coaching set-up has been a big thing.
But you can’t beat standing at the top of the podium. It doesn’t mean we’ll win gold in PyeongChang but it has been great for team morale and to show to ourselves and our rivals that we’re in a good place as far as coping with big game pressure is concerned.
It won’t come as any shock to you what my new year wish is…..an Olympic gold medal, obviously!
There is no getting away from the fact that the Olympics are the pinnacle of curling.
If somebody was to say to me now, ‘you’ll play your best, do everything you can and you’ll get another medal’ then I’m sure I would be happy with that.
To join a really small club of British double Winter Olympic medal-winners would be special.
But I’m not going to try and hide the fact that I am really driven to get gold this time.
We definitely have a realistic shot at it. Not many athletes get the chance to say that and it’s a testament to what we’ve done in 2017 that we’re among those who can.
* 2017 might not have been a real vintage year for sport but there were some brilliant achievements all the same.
While Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic have been out of action, the two old men of tennis, Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer, have been racking up more grand slams.
The Scotland rugby team have made us all excited about what might be on the horizon and the less said about our football team, the better!
For me, the British and Irish Lions drawing the test series with New Zealand was the stand-out memory.
In the build-up to one of the matches I was surrounded by former international rugby players at a golf event at Celtic Manor.
I was on the course with one of the real greats of the game – Sir Gareth Edwards – and his insight about how big a deal it would be to win that second Test was a real eye-opener.
There’s something about the concept of the Lions that gets even more special as time goes on.
And as curler who tries to beat Canadians in their own backyard I’ve got a bit of an idea of the challenge the Lions had against the All Blacks.
You’re taking on competitors who have an aura that other countries don’t.
I think that as the years go on, the 2017 Lions will be more and more respected.
