The GB squad is on its way to the World University Winter Games in Erzurum, Turkey. The curling gets underway on Friday. The men’s team will be skipped by Glen Muirhead, with Alasdair Guthrie (3rd), Greg Drummond (2nd), Kerr Drummond (lead) and Michael Goodfellow (fifth). Gordon Muirhead is the team coach. Canada is the GB opposition in the first game.The women's team will be skipped by Anna Sloan, with Lauren Gray (3rd), Vicki Adams (2nd), Sarah Macintyre (lead) and Claire Hamilton (fifth). Brad Askew is the team coach. They play the Czech Republic in their opening game on Friday morning.
Nancy Murdoch is the head coach for the GB curling squad.
The Universiades are open to all student athletes who have not been out of university or its equivalent for more than a year and who are between 17 and 28 years old. Any association which belongs to FISU may enter a team or an individual competitor. Entries are accepted from any country which is eligible for the Olympic Games and from any national federation which is affiliated to an appropriate International Federation.
Ten women’s and ten student men’s teams will take part in the curling event at Erzurum. The women’s teams are Canada, China, Czech Republic, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Korea, Poland, Russia and Turkey. Last time the event was held, in Harbin in 2009, China won the gold (skip Bingyu Wang), Canada (Hollie Nicol) took silver, and Russia (Liudmila Privikova) won bronze. Sarah Reid's team finished fourth. They went 5-4 in the round robin, won a tiebreaker to get in to the semis, but lost both playoff games. Vicki Adams and Sarah Macintyre, the front end in 2009, play for GB again this year.
The men’s teams are Canada, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Korea, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and USA. Sweden's Niklas Edin won gold in Harbin, Norway (Thomas Løvold) got silver, and China (Fengchun Wang) took the bronze. John Hamilton's GB men's team came seventh with a 3-6 win-loss record.
The event website is here. Photos of the GB curling teams can be viewed here.
