Aileen to skip Scotland at World Wheelchair Championships

Team Scotland

Feb 1 2012 by Paul Thomson, East Kilbride News

AILEEN NEILSON will skip her country at the World Wheelchair Curling Championships in South Korea later this month – and she is determined to lead her rink to gold.

The 40-year-old, from Strathaven, took silver for Scotland at last year’s event in Czech Republic after they were beaten 7-3 by defending champions Canada in the final.

But with a new coach on board in the form of Canadian stalwart Tony Zummack, Aileen is confident the Scots can take their game to the next level in Chuncheon City.

She told the News: “The squad selection was in January and I’m delighted to be selected as skip.

“It’s a great honour for me to do this and hopefully we can go one better than we did last year.
“We’ve got a new coach in Tony Zummack this year and we’ve been working with him twice a week to be at the top of our game for the championships.

“Tony was supposed to coach us last year, but there were problems with him getting a visa for a while and we never got the benefit of his expertise.

“Thankfully, we have been able to work with him for a while now and he’s brought a different delivery style to our games and some new tactics, so it’s been a real learning curve for everyone in the team.”

Aileen is joined in the Scotland squad by Gregor Ewan, Tom Killen, Angie Malone and newcomer Jim Gault for the event which takes place between February 18-25.

The tournament, which begins with a round-robin event before the topfour teams progress to the semi-finals, will see the Scots competewith hosts South Korea, Canada, China, Norway, Russia, Sweden,USA, Slovakia and Italy for the title.

And the team are in good form ahead of the championships as they aim to knock Canada off their perch.

The Bent Primary School teacher added: “Canada are right up there as the favourites, but if we can play to our potential we can give them a run for their money this year.

“We had a competition with Sweden and Norway last week so it was good to get the chance to play the calibre of teams we will play at the world championships.

“And just before Christmas we were out in Switzerland and won the Bern-Swiss International, so these experiences have been great for our confidence.”

But there is a lot more at stake than just the world title as 2014 is a Winter Olympics year and the Scots are desperate to garner more crucial points towards their qualification for Sochi, Russia.
The reigning East Kilbride Sports Personality of the Year added:“We have accrued a lot of points forthe Olympics after finishing second last year, but we don’t want to rest on our laurels because we are not there yet.

“A repeat of last year’s performance or better would make things a lot more comfortable for us because, even although there would still be another year or so for other countries to claim points, it would be pretty unlikely that we would miss out.”