After emerging on the global stage at senior level last month, Katie McMillan is feeling all the more ready for the challenge as she and partner Angus Bryce prepare to represent Scotland at the ACE & Company World Mixed Doubles Championships in Geneva over the next week (April 25 – May 2).
Just weeks after making her debut at the BKT Tires World Women’s Championships along with teammates Fay Henderson, Hailey Duff, Lisa Davie and Laura Watt, the 25-year-old from Dumfries believes she can draw upon what she learned in Calgary as she and her 24-year-old partner from Kelso set themselves for the week ahead.
“The World Women’s Championships was a great experience for me so I am hoping that experience puts me in good stead for yet another world champs debut and it is great to be taking on this campaign with Angus,” said McMillan. 
“We have had a great training block since I got back from Calgary about four weeks ago, so we are hoping to put that into practice in Geneva this week.”
The Scottish pair find themselves in the same pool as Italy’s reigning champions and 2022 Olympic gold medallists Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner in the round-robin stages, but are also aware that the threats can come from every direction in this dynamic version of the sport.
“It will be a great to see how we can test ourselves against some of the best teams in the world including defending champions Italy in the week ahead, but it’s quite a mixed bag of teams that are going to be in our pool, so we will focus on what we are doing and stick to our processes and hopefully have a good week,” said McMillan.
While new to this environment as a partnership, they can also draw upon having shown their quality against high class mixed doubles pairings to win their own national championships, given the consistency of their colleagues in international mixed doubles that has seen teams prepared within the British Curling programme win two World titles, contest three World Championship finals and reach two Olympic semi-finals in the past five years.
“As a British Curling squad we have had quite a few different combinations that have had a lot of success at the World Mixed Doubles which is good to see, so that gives us a lot of confidence heading into this event that we can hopefully build on that success,” said McMillan.
The Scots open their campaign against the USA’s Rachel Kawleski and Connor Kauffman on the opening day and will also face Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, South Korea and Switzerland in the round-robin matches, with the top three in the standings going on to meet their counterparts from the other 10 team pool in the knockout stages. 
The ACE & Company World Mixed Doubles Championships gets underway tomorrow with 20 nations taking part: Italy, Scotland, Australia, Estonia, United States, Canada, Sweden, Norway, New Zealand, Finland, Switzerland, Korea, Japan, Germany, Denmark, Czechia, China, France, Hungary and the Netherlands.
Please click here for more information about the ACE & Company World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, 25 April – 2 May, Geneva Switzerland.
Watch LIVE games on the Curling Channel.
Schedule and results:
Day 1 – 25 April
Scotland v USA – 1330 GMT
Day 2 – 26 April
Scotland v Korea – 0900 GMT
Scotland v Switzerland – 18.00 GMT
Day 3 – 27 April
Scotland v Finland – 1300 GMT
Day 4 – 28 April
Scotland v Czechia - 0900 GMT
Scotland v Canada – 1800 GMT
Day 5 – 29 April
Scotland v Hungary – 1300 GMT
Day 6 – 30 April
Scotland v Germany - 0900 GMT
Scotland v Italy - 1800 GMT
Day 7 – 1 May
Qualifications - 0900 GMT
Semi Finals – 1800 GMT
Day 8 – 2 May
Bronze – 0900 GMT
Gold – 1300 GMT
