British Curling has completed its athlete selections for the 2023-24 season with the announcement of four Performance Foundations teams, while six further curlers have been brought into the programme to receive Performance Foundation Potential Support for the first time.
In the women’s game Team Blair will have a new line-up, with Lucy Blair and Susie Smith now joined by Amy Mitchell, who was the alternate for Fay Henderson’s World Junior Champions and Karlyn Lyon, who has graduated from the Scottish Curling Academy. 
In the men’s game there have been no changes to the teams skipped by Olympian Kyle Waddell, former World Junior and current World University Games Champion James Craik and his younger brother Ross.
However, along with Hannah Farries and Kirsty Gallacher, Team Carson’s teenage quartet which won the men’s Scottish Junior Championship and went on to claim bronze on their World Junior Championship debut, are part of a newly created Performance Foundation Potential Support tier which will assist them in a localised rather than centralised setting.
Orrin Carson, their skip who has turned 18 since those World Champs, having led a trio of 15-year-olds – younger brother Logan, Archie Hyslop and Charlie Gibb at that event – believes the funding will accelerate their development.
“The extra support means we can compete in more events and if we win the Scottish Juniors again hopefully we can get back to the World Juniors,” he said.
“It will make a huge difference on and off the ice and more gym sessions and coached sessions will really help us to build towards our bigger events.” 
He noted, however, that his team has already benefited from playing at a venue that has placed proper emphasis on youth development.
“We have a great set up here for juniors in Dumfries, with great access to ice with six sheets here and a number of junior coaching sessions a week which is probably why there have been so many good curlers coming from this place,” said Carson.
“We are ambitious, we want to go as far as we can in curling and would love one day to go to the Olympics and the Men’s World Champs and this support is the ideal stepping stone towards that.”
Dave Leith, British Curling Interim Performance Director said: “The promotion of a number of female athletes from Performance Foundation (PF) into the Olympic program shows that the Pathway is working in terms of giving opportunities to developing athletes.
“We are delighted to have World Junior Champion Amy Mitchell and Stranraer based Scottish Curling Academy member Karlyn Lyon on board as new PF members completing Team Blair.
“We are, however, also constantly looking at ways of improving our processes and that is reflected in the creation of the new Performance Foundation Potential Support tier which allows us to provide more customised support for younger athletes who are identified as being on course to challenge at elite level in future Olympic cycles.” 
PERFORMANCE FOUNDATION TEAMS 2023/24:
TEAM WADDELL
Kyle Waddell
Craig Waddell
Mark Taylor
Gavin Barr
TEAM JAMES CRAIK
James Craik
Mark Watt
Angus Bryce
Blair Haswell
TEAM ROSS CRAIK
Ross Craik
Scott Hyslop
Struan Carson
Jack Carrick
TEAM BLAIR (playing order TBC)
Lucy Blair
Susie Smith
Amy Mitchell
Karlyn Lyon 
PERFORMANCE FOUNDATION POTENTIAL SUPPORT 2023/24:
TEAM CARSON
Orrin Carson
Logan Carson
Archie Hyslop
Charlie Gibb
INDIVIDUALS:
Hannah Farries
Kirsty Gallacher
#curling
Images: WCF/Stephen Fisher & Celine Stucki, WUGs: Jack Hodgetts, Stefan Tjarnlund.
