World Curling Champions Team Mouat will begin building towards next year’s Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina with the defence of their Baden Masters title in a field that contains more than half of the top 20 teams in the global rankings.
With their selection as Team GB’s men’s representatives at the Games having been confirmed in the summer, following a 2024-25 campaign which saw them win four of the sport’s five Grand Slam tournaments, as well as regaining the world title, Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan are primed to give their all in the months ahead.
“It has been a really nice summer and the boys and I obviously got the team announcement for the Olympics so we are looking forward to building momentum heading towards that,” said Mouat, ahead of the event which takes place from August 14-17. 
“We always enjoy going to Baden, which is a great venue to start the season and it will be good to get on ice and get into some competitive games.
“Our training has been really good over the last four weeks so happy to be heading to Baden on the back of that and last season we won the title for the first time after quite a few attempts so we are hoping to recapture it.”
Opening their campaign against China’s world number 16 ranked Team Xu, Mouat’s men will also face Norway’s world number 14 ranked Team Ramsfjell as well as Team Goesgens from the Netherlands and the host nation’s Team Luthold in the pool stages.
Compatriots Team Whyte, the only other team to win a Grand Slam event last season, face Italy’s former world number one ranked Team Retornaz, Switzerland’s Team Stocker, the Czech Republic’s Team Klima and Team Pfister, who are representing the Philippines.
The other two Scottish challengers Teams Waddell and Carson find themselves in a formidable pool, alongside current world number two ranked Team Schwaller, another Swiss quartet in Team Iseli and Sweden’s seven time World Champions Team Edin.
“It looks like it will be a very high class field and we always expect that at the Swiss events and we will have to be playing well just to get out of our group, so we are looking forward to the challenge,” Mouat acknowledged. 
“There has been a lot going on over the summer for the four of us so it is nice just to have normality setting back in and getting back to competing on ice and start competing for what is our main goal of the season to win at the Olympics, we are setting goals for ourselves and we want to come out with a good performance in Baden to get the season on track.
“It should be a very different build up this time to the Games with no Covid restrictions this time around and we’re just quite excited to have family and friends planning to join us in Cortina and watch us and with just a one hour time difference with the UK it will be great.
“That should make a big difference and hopefully we can put curling on the map again and get people excited to come and try our sport.”
Link to Baden results
Watch the LIVE streamed games on WCT TV YouTube
British Curling teams:
Team Mouat
Bruce Mouat
Grant Hardie
Bobby Lammie
Hammy McMillan
Team Whyte
Ross Whyte
Robin Brydone
Craig Waddell
Euan Kyle
Team Waddell
Kyle Waddell
Mark Watt
Angus Bryce
Blair Haswell
Team Carson
Orrin Carson
Logan Carson
Archie Hyslop
Charlie Gibb
Images: Anil Mungal/GSOC
