Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie, Hammy McMillan and Ross Whyte

Team GB men’s skip, Bruce Mouat, has been fixated by curling for the past 20 years – but his infatuation with his sport wasn’t always a foregone conclusion.

In the 2002 Winter Olympics at Salt Lake City, when Mouat was just eight years old, Team GB’s Rhona Martin helped clinch a gold medal for the women’s curling team in a historic sporting moment.

Martin’s ‘Stone of Destiny’ instantly became curling legend and helped inspire Mouat, who might have pursued swimming over curling were it not for the team’s triumph.

He said: “I didn’t have any relation who curled before me, it hasn’t run in the family for me, unlike most curlers. Rhona’s success was such a huge thing and it led the way for so many athletes.”

Twenty years on Mouat is now hoping to replicate Rhona Martin’s historic success by leading his own team to the podium at the Beijing 2022 Winter Games.

For the men’s event, Edinburgh-born Mouat will be accompanied by Bobby Lammie and cousins Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan, with Ross Whyte joining as an alternate.

McMillan and Hardie were instrumental in the building of Team Mouat, which came together in its current form in 2017 and had immediate success on the World Curling Tour.

They decided to form the rink over a pint or two, first bringing Lammie on board who had played with Mouat as a junior since 2015.

The team only came together at that time when Mouat failed to qualify for PyeongChang 2018 in the mixed doubles discipline.

Hardie believes that the lengthy break from competition in 2020 helped the team, particularly when it came to improving their physicality.

Since National Lottery funding to elite sport started in 1997, over 1,000 Olympic and Paralympic medals have been won, with more to come in Beijing 2022, Paris 2024 and beyond. 

Having won silver at the 2021 World Championships in Calgary, the team is hoping to add to this impressive medal count at the upcoming Winter Games.

They also scooped European gold on debut as a quartet in 2018, so the all-Scottish grouping are entering Beijing with a lot to live up to.

“That expectation is something we probably have to embrace,” said Hardie.

“We’ve earned the title of one of the top teams in the world and if we’re going to go there and medal, we’ve got to be able to handle that.

“We’ll lean on past results and the knowledge that we’ve beaten all of these teams before. Hopefully it gives us the opportunity to go out and perform again.

Since National Lottery funding to elite sport started in 1997, over 1,000 Olympic and Paralympic medals have been won, with more to come in Beijing 2022, Paris 2024 and beyond.