Scottish curling teams target medals at European Championships

Scottish curling teams are heading to the European Championships in Ostrava with strong hopes of winning medals, according to reports from Yahoo Sports and BBC Sport. Last year, the Scottish women’s team won silver and the men’s team took bronze, but this year only three curlers from those teams are competing.

Grant Hardie and Fay Henderson, who previously played supporting roles on last year’s teams, have now become skips leading new Scottish rinks. Both teams qualified for the European Championships by winning the Scottish Championships earlier this year, shortly after the Winter Olympics.

Hardie, who had been deputy to Bruce Mouat for nine years, left that team to lead the new rink and is ranked among the top five teams worldwide. He expressed a clear goal of winning the European title despite the strong competition.

Henderson, who was an alternate on last year’s silver-medal winning women’s team, is aiming for a podium finish and hopes to complete her set of European medals. Both skips emphasize their teams’ determination to prove themselves as major contenders at the event.

The European Championships will take place over six days in Ostrava, Czech Republic, and selected games will be broadcast live on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app.