Regional Academy Squad at Braehead

The curlers in the Royal Club's Regional Academy Squad were at the Braehead Curling Rink this weekend. These athletes are selected individually for support. The full list is on the RCCC website here. How many of the curlers, and coaches, can you identify in this photo? (Click on the pic to see a larger size.)

The weekend followed the now familiar mix of on-ice exercises and drills, as well as off-ice classroom sessions. Here Logan Gray is testing out sweepers' communication. That's Ruaraidh Whyte and Fraser Thomson doing the sweeping on Iain Wilson's stone.

Simon from Elite Sports Analysis was making sure all had their deliveries analysed.

The curlers moved around a variety of activities.

Some of the curlers had experienced the activities before. For others, such as Lorna Shaw (above), it was a first experience of a Regional Academy Squad weekend. Lorna is the first Regional Academy athlete from the Borders Rink in Kelso.

Sport psychologist, Laura Carey, gets underway with a classroom session for half the squad. Find out some more about Laura here.

Of course, at these weekends, it's not all work. There's always time for some fun activities. This year it was across to Xscape's snow zone. I was rather jealous!

Kyle Smith demonstrates an 'alternative' way of descending the slope, on his helmet rather than on the sled.

RCCC Performance Development Coach Rhona Martin was in charge, and the Braehead staff made sure that everyone knew that when she asked for a coffee!

And here Brad Askew, Rhona's assistant, surprised three of the group who have birthdays this weekend. L-R: Lauren Baxter, James Carswell, Katy Richardson. Competition time - one of the group is 19, one 17 and one 15. Match the ages to the curlers!

Pics © Skip Cottage

More Regional Academy

We're still in the experimental stage! Here is a small selection of photos from yesterday, followed by a link to a Picasa Web Album, with more, although these are not captioned. Feedback appreciated.

Robert Fawns, Jay McWilliam and Jennifer Marshall were the winners in almost every activity of the weekend. Top team!

Mhairi Anderson with the follow through.

It was good to see Peter Stark on the ice. Peter skipped the GB team which won medals at the 1st World Deaf Ice Hockey and Curling Championships last season.

Healthy athlete food at the Peak.

Jennifer Dodds whips her sweepers into action in the draw the button contest.

Isn't there something missing in this pic? Irene Hird in action.

First caption competition of the new season. Brad Askew and Ian Copland.

Judith McFarlane's delivery gets special attention from Rhona. Although my mother would have said, "Judith, you're going to catch your death!"

Not a classic delivery, but Fiona Steele did point out it was her first of the season!

One might ask what Albert Middler is doing in this pic. Good question, but it is the 'zones' exercise, where the sweepers have to decide where the stone is going to end up.

Logan Gray explaining all about angles.

Rhona Martin with Simon Lovelock of Elite Sports Analysis.

Right, now I'm going to try something different. I have a few more photos (another 36 or so) from the day. If you would like to see them in my Picasaweb Album, here they are. Just click on the block below to go there. Or, go further down the page and see them running in a slideshow. My own preference is to go to the Picasaweb album and run the slideshow from there. That seems to handle the portrait oriented pics better, and the photos are larger on the screen than they appear below in the embedded version.

Regional Academy Curlers at Stirling

You can mouseover to navigate the slideshow.



All pics by Bob.

Regional Academy Curlers at Stirling

The Peak at Stirling was my destination yesterday where I was privileged to attend the second day of the Regional Academy training weekend. There are four strands to the performance pathway of a curler in Scotland: Regional Academy, National Academy, Area Institute of Sport (AIS) and the Elite Squad, run by the Scottish Institute of Sport (SIS).

The Regional Academy athletes then are the first rung on the ladder of those receiving support.

The Regional Academy programme supports individual curlers from the age of 14 and up, who already show excellence in curling. Begun by Nancy Murdoch, the programme is managed now by Rhona Martin, the Royal Caledonian Curling Club's Performance Development Coach. The funding of this programme is made possible by members of the Regional Academy paying an induction fee as well as the RCCC administering funds.

An innovation last year was the introduction of a training weekend where all the curlers get together. This year there was a packed schedule with lectures on nutrition, physio, anti-doping and, for the first time, sports psychology, delivered by the Scottish Institute of Sport's Misha Botting. There was basketball, a swimming gala, as well as all the on-ice activities. There were some forty curlers at Stirling yesterday.

Click on my photo above to see the group in a larger size.

Can you identify the following (in no set order): Derrick Sloan, Claire Dagen, Gina Aitken, Stuart Taylor, Rachel Hannen, Ruairidh Greenwood, Jennifer Dodds, Kyle Waddell, Karen Strang, Eilidh Templeton, Lauren Baxter, Mhairi Anderson, Ian Copland, Andrew Ballantyne, Rori MacPherson, Tasha Aitken, Kirsten McNay, Jennifer Paul, Jennifer Martin, Angus Dowell, Struan Wood, Billy Morton, Cameron Smith, Kimberley Smith, Hamilton McMillan, Scott Fraser, Helen King, Katy Richardson, Mhairi Baird, Duncan Menzies, Jay McWilliam, Craig Waddell, Robert Fawns, Judith McFarlane, Kyle Smith, Jennifer Marshall, Peter Stark, Fiona Steele.

Also in the pic are Irene Hird, Logan Gray, Albert Middler, Brad Askew, Rhona Martin and Royal Club President Bill Marshall.

I'll post more pics from yesterday later today!