Happy New Year and welcome to our second President’s Newsletter of the 2018-2019 season. With more business to be done on the ice, let me begin by wishing everyone good luck and good for the upcoming World Curling Championships.

This past week, the inaugural World Qualification Event came to an end. Grateful thanks to the organising committee, in Naseby, New Zealand. They ensured the success of this new event and well done to the teams – China and Finland women and Korea and Netherlands men – who qualified for the Worlds.

Further congratulations to the New Zealand Curling Association after its junior men’s team qualified for the World Juniors for the very first time.

With this success, every Member Association hosting our Stepping Stones programme, so far, have gone on to qualify for their first world event. Estonia and Latvia’s wheelchair curlers and New Zealand’s junior men’s teams will all compete in Worlds this season.

Finally, on a personal note, it was a great honour for me to have been awarded the CBE for ‘Services to Sport’ in the Queen’s New Year 2019 Honours List.

A word from the Athlete Commission

Our Athlete Commission, chaired by Canada’s, 2010 world men’s champion, Nolan Thiessen, has been working hard on developing recommendations for the new 20-team World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship to be implemented in 2020.

The Commission is also planning a survey for elite curlers to be published in the Spring, that addresses the state of the game and potential improvements for future years.

On behalf of the Commission, Nolan, outlines the work being done in this letter to our athletes and Member Associations.

Fuessen registration Registration is now open for Fuessen camps and courses, in Germany. Ice tech (29 June-3 July), umpire (4-5 July) and instructor (5-6 July) courses are offered and the Junior Curling Camp (7-13 July).

2019 Prohibited List takes effect

The World Anti-Doping Agency 2019 Prohibited List took effect on 1 January. Athletes and officials are responsible for understanding and complying to the list.

New wheelchair policy introduced

We published our new Wheelchair Curling Policy in October 2018. This document outlines supplementary policies for wheelchair curling as mentioned in the Rules of Curling.

Member Associations spotlight

Scotland’s Anna Sloan can call herself many things – a World Junior champion, a European champion, a World Women’s champion and an Olympic bronze medallist.

Although you won’t find Sloan training on the ice or in the gym for her next curling event, you can still find her in her home ice rink where she now “sees curling from a different angle”.

Along with her new role as Scottish Curling’s Development Officer at Lockerbie – her home ice rink – she is one of ten winners of the ‘Athlete in Excellence’ award from The Foundation for Global Sports Development. Sloan received $USD 10,000 in recognition for the award and has plans to give back to her childhood rink.

Our media team caught up with Anna to see what life has been like from the other side. To read the interview click here.

In addition to this achievement, Sloan kicked off the new year with our Competitions and Development Officer, Darrell Ell, on the first Olympic Celebration Tour stop – another curling initiative funded by Global Sports Development.

More about the Olympic Celebration Tour here More on Ireland's Tour stop here

More news from our Member Associations can be found on our website...

Read On

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Credits: Anton Hood, New Zealand junior, © WCF / Alina Pavlyuchik Czech Republic women at Europeans, © WCF / Stephen Fisher Fuessen group photo, © WCF / Christian Leibbrandt Wheelchair curling, © WCF / Céline Stucki Anna Sloan, British Olympian © WCF / Richard Gray

Time has been taken to research and share interesting stories, opportunities and content with you from third parties. The opinions in these items belong to the original author and therefore do not represent the views and opinions of the WCF.

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