Olympian Kyle Waddell is heading to the Continent this week hoping to get competitive evidence of the improvements his youthful team are making as they look to work their way up the rankings.
The 28-year-old, who represented Team GB at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, skipped his team at last season’s World Championships after they won the Scottish title, but an overhaul in the summer saw Waddell and younger brother Craig joined by youngsters Mark Taylor and Gavin Barr. 
They narrowly missed out on reaching the play-offs on their last overseas trip to the Curling Masters in Champery earlier this month, but Waddell is pleased with how they are all responding to the new challenge as they return to Switzerland for this week’s Grand Prix in Bern and the following week’s Swiss Cup in Basel.
“We’re pretty happy with the progress we’re making, so we just need to turn that into results,” he said.
“In Champery we struggled to adapt to the ice, but I think the ice will be pretty good in the two events coming up, so this is probably a good test for us to see exactly where we are and how far we have come as a team.
“We’re still learning, but now we probably all recognise that the two events coming up are opportunities to bring our best performance and see how far we can go.”
In Bern they will be up against a strong European field, as well as two domestic rivals in fellow British Curling Performance Foundation level curlers Team Craik, led by World Junior champion skip James Craik as well as Team Bryce, whose skip, Cammy Bryce, led Scotland to a World Mixed Championship silver medal last weekend.
“I’ve not played in Bern before, but I’ve heard good things about it and it looks like a pretty decent field this week,” said Waddell. 
“We’ve got a good start with a quality opponent in Switzerland’s Team Schwaller, so we’ll see how we cope with that and obviously with the other two Scottish teams we know them pretty well and hopefully we’ll meet them at some point, but we’re mainly focusing on ourselves.
“We know what we want to achieve and we set our own targets, so I won’t be looking too closely at what they do, but I’ll look forward to facing them if it happens.”
Waddell’s growing seniority within the British Curling programme has meanwhile been reflected in the coaching responsibilities he has taken on, while seeking to help his own team develop.
“It’s been good the last couple of years. I’ve been helping the junior guys and really enjoyed it,” he said.
“I’m just helping where I can with my own teammates, too and Gavin in particular is doing really well. He’s played lead for a couple of seasons and is doing a good job and for Mark coming into the programme for the first year, it’s a steep learning curve, but every week he’s improving.”
He is, however, appreciative of the prospect of an extra pair of eyes as coach Tom Brewster, rejoins them after having to focus in recent weeks on the World Mixed Championship that was being hosted by the facility he manages at Curl Aberdeen
“Bringing Tom over to Bern and Basel with us will be good,” said Waddell.
“He’s always good to have around and he’s got a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience which he can pass on to all four of us, so we all learn from him from time to time and it will just be good to have a set of eyes on the team from behind the glass.” 
As Teams Waddell and Craik get their campaigns underway at the triple knock-out format Grand Prix Bern Inter Curling Challenge, in Switzerland, another British Curling Performance Foundation rink Team Ross Craik start their European Junior Curling Tour challenge in Oslo.
Team Craik
James Craik
Mark Watt
Angus Bryce
Blair Haswell
Team Waddell
Kyle Waddell
Craig Waddell
Mark Taylor
Gavin Barr
Team Ross Craik
Ross Craik
Scott Hyslop
Struan Carson
Jack Carrick
Images: PPA Graeme Hart
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