After a month of globetrotting, British Curling’s wheelchair athletes return to home ice this week when they compete against several of the best teams in the world at the 10TH Stirling Wheelchair International.
The action takes place at The Peak in Stirling from 21-24 October, with eight teams in the field including Paralympic and World Champions China who, like Spain, are taking part in the event for the first time, while Canada, the USA, Latvia and Poland, are also up against the two home line-ups.
The Great Britain players have performed well on the road in recent weeks, reaching the final in the first ever Grand Slam of Curling wheelchair competition in London, Ontario last month and, just last weekend, picking up a bronze medal at The International Wheelchair Tournament in Wetzikon, Switzerland.
They are consequently looking forward to building on that in the programme’s home city, next door to the National Curling Academy. 
“It is great that Stirling which is our training home, has attracted such a strong line-up,” said Jo Butterfield, the Paralympic athletics gold medallist who switched sports to curling three years ago and has already won a World Championship bronze medal.
“This week is an epic line-up, super strong with China as reigning Paralympic and World Champions and also Canada and other internationalists who will really push us hopefully to perform at our best.
“Some may look at the field and see it as rather daunting, but for me in Paralympic year we are going to face the big dogs as some point so let’s do it now and see where we are at.
“Ultimately we are testing ourselves against the best and I have competed in this competition before and have won it, so that is the target and the focus and I will approach this week with the same mentality and competing in front of a home crowd we will see where that takes us.”
Part of the team which reached the Grand Slam final in Ontario, Butterfield has subsequently had to keep in touch with performances remotely as the full squad has been scrutinised with an array of different players heading to Italy and Switzerland since then.
“I am not going to lie, it is quite hard watching from the sidelines as team mates go out and play and naturally I just want to be out on the ice,” she said.
“In fairness, though we have had a really solid couple of week’s training while the others have been away and it is always motivating to see the standard out there and it definitely adds to my excitement and my own competition expectations this week.”
To that end, the opportunity to sample the Grand Slam experience was hugely positive for Butterfield and she is keen to feed off that. 
“That was my first competition of the season and it was absolutely incredible to be part of that first Grand Slam event showcasing wheelchair curling in front of big crowds and doing something that has never been done before.
“I truly believe that as a sport that is where we need to go and help the sport grow to be seen more and get more people into it and that is how we can do that.
“Reaching that final was a huge boost. It boosted my confidence and that of the team and actually it set a benchmark.
“That benchmark of where I am and where we are in our preparations and it set that tone for this Paralympic year.
“It gave us that reminder that we always want to be in the final, so every competition we enter we are striving to get into that final.
“It has undoubtedly put us in good stead and we need to carry that momentum forward.”
Born south of the border, but having made her home in Scotland whom she represents on the international stage, Butterfield is well placed to assess the way that the rapid growth of English wheelchair curling has helped generate strength in depth and she knows that will only make the competition for Paralympic places that bit keener.
“The squad this year is the biggest it has ever been with the greatest strength and depth, especially with Scotland and England coming together and as a result we are all fighting for positions,” she noted.
“To get that best team selected for Cortina we are swapping and rotating different people around all the time in different teams and it has been really positive and it is vital that we test these different combinations in order to send the strongest team to the Paralympics. 
“Seeing my team mates achieve in Switzerland at the weekend has been inspiring and it is helping to build that cohesion and culture of how we perform in different set ups.
“So this week is another chance to show that we are fighting for those team places when selection takes place in December and that team will be the best prepared for those Games.”
Butterfield’s GBR 2 line-up open the round-robin event against the USA in the first round of matches at 10am, while GBR 1 meet Spain in their opener.
Great Britain 1
Gregor Ewan
Gary Smith
Rich Osborn
Julian Mattison
Lynsey Speirs
Coach: Niall Ryder
Great Britain 2
Austin McKenzie
Martin Sutherland
Keith Gray
Graeme Stewart
Meggan Dawson Farrell
Jo Butterfield
Coach: Sheila Swan
Images: British Curling / PPA.
