Scots duo Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat have booked their place in next year’s Winter Olympics for Team GB after clinching a semi-final spot in the World Mixed Doubles Championships at Curl Aberdeen.
Dodds and Mouat, who beat Canada to take the outright lead at the top of Pool A, needed to win one of their two matches today but have avoided any late drama tonight with a 9-1 demolition of Korea which puts them in an unassailable lead.
It will be the first time Team GB has taken part in mixed doubles at the Winter Olympics, having narrowly missed out on a place when it was introduced as a new discipline in Korea in 2018, but after losing in the final at the World Men’s Championship, Mouat wants to go one better on home ice in Curl Aberdeen.
He said: “We are really excited, but at the competition here we are here to win a World Championship.
“That is our main goal, but you always have that feeling that we are here also to qualify Team GB for that Olympics and we managed to get that so yeah, job one done as you say and now onto the second job which is to win the gold medal.”
The win against Canada on Thursday night meant that, having beaten both Canada and the Czech Republic, the only other teams that can finish with seven wins, the duo started play today knowing a win over either Korea or Hungary, neither of whom can reach the play-offs, would be enough to secure top spot in the group and a guaranteed place in the semi-finals.
They did so in style, racing into a 7-0 lead after three ends before Korea could muster a reply. Two further singles at the fifth and sixth ends wrapped up a resounding win with the minimum of fuss.
Dodds said: “We knew we had a really good win against Canada last night and we knew we’d probably need to bring the same performance into the game against Korea this afternoon.
“We again had a really good start, so we just have to keep playing like we are into the play-offs.”
The duo are in action again tonight against Hungary at 7.30pm.
