Scotland skip Jackson 'excited' at Olympic prospects

BBC News

23-03-2025

Scotland skip Sophie Jackson believes her rink can be "excited" about their Winter Olympic prospects despite being knocked out in the play-off round at the World Women's Curling Championship in South Korea.Sophie Jackson's rink, ranked 19th in the world, had beaten Rachel Homan's Canadians in their opening round-robin game before the world number ones gained revenge on their way to retaining their title by beating Switzerland in Sunday's final.Finishing sixth in the round robin was enough to ensure that a Great Britain rink will be represented at next year's Olympics in Milan-Cortina and Jackson is hoping her team have done enough to be selected to defend the title."Looking at where we are now compared to where we were this time last year is so encouraging and just shows us where we can be in another year's time," Jackson said."We are all excited by the prospect of where we can get to."Scotland second Sophie Sinclair was included in the LGT World Women's Championship All Star team, picked annually on the basis of the player in each position who has the best playing statistics over 12 round-robin matches."Every single one of the team had multiple stellar performances this week and it's fantastic to have Sophie sitting at the top of the stats for seconds," Jackson said."I'm super proud of the whole team for how we approached this week and the quality performances that we were able to put together."Sinclair was quick to share the credit with Jackson, who has skipped the team while playing lead stones, third Jen Dodds and Rebecca Morrison, who plays last stones."It's a huge achievement because, as a team, we have worked so hard on the placement of the second stones and how we have improved our tactical game, so it has just been so nice to see those shots coming off," Sinclair said."It's been a really good week and we're now looking forward to working hard next year. It shows what potential we have as a team, which is super exciting."Homan went on to gain revenge for Canada's round-robin defeat by beating South Korea in the semi-final before securing her fourth world gold with a 7-3 victory over Switzerland.Canada had been the only side to defeat Silvana Tirinzoni's rink as the Swiss topped the round-robin, but the second seeds were unable to turn the tables and secure their skip a fifth world title despite leading 3-2 after six ends.Meanwhile, Rui Wang's China beat Eunji Gim's hosts 9-4 to take bronze.