Not the medal they wanted – but GB curlers bring spotlight to sport

It’s a Thursday night in November. A pub in Glasgow’s Merchant City. Four men, all about the age of 30, are squeezed around a small table, eating and talking about what the next few months might bring. Nobody recognises them.

That same pub three months later. Screens showing Scotland’s Six Nations win in Wales are changed so patrons can watch the curling. Almost everyone is anxiously staring at the TVs, willing those same four men to win a Winter Olympic final.

Ultimately Team GB’s Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Hammy McMillan and Bobby Lammie – plus alternate Kyle Waddell – could not quite get it done against Canada. They had to settle for silver yet again. Just as they did in Beijing four years ago.

This Scottish quartet believed standing atop the podium was their destiny this time. Indeed, Mouat referred to it as “our gold medal,” after Thursday’s epic semi-final against Switzerland – a contest which drew 3.4m viewers to the BBC at its peak.

But the cloak of invincibility they have worn for much of this four-year Olympic cycle slipped against the Canadians – just as it did during the round-robin stages – and left the world champions wondering what might have been.

One day, they will come to cherish those two silver medals. But not any time soon.

“I’ve tried not to look at it, to be honest,” a heavy-hearted Hardie told BBC Sport, gesturing to the slab of metal resting on his chest.

“Not many people can say they’ve got two of these and I’m sure one day we’ll take pride in that. But, right now, it hurts too much.”

When British Olympic history is written, the names of Hardie and his pals will be included, regardless of what might have been.

But who are these curlers? How did they find themselves here? And what might be next for them after another heartbreak?

To understand the dynamic between the quartet, you have to go back almost nine years to when they first came together as a team.

With the world of curling being as small as it is, they were not strangers to each other. Hardie and McMillan are 33-year-old cousins from south-west Scotland. Lammie, 29, hails from there, too, and played in a rink previously with 31-year-old Mouat, who knew the others from their shared school days in Edinburgh.

Approaches were made, conversations were had, culminating in a meeting.

“That first time we met, the thing we wrote at the top of our list of goals was to win Olympic gold,” Mouat told BBC Sport.

After that, the die was cast. The boys told British Curling they were only willing to join the elite programme as a unit and not individually. Their ultimatum was accepted, success has followed, and now they are considered the best in the world.

Team Mouat have come to dominate men’s curling, winning two World Championships and adding another couple of European crowns, as well as a record 12 Grand Slam titles. At times, they have been unbeatable.

Mouat is thought to be among the greatest skips to have played the game. Hardie has a reputation as a high-grade tactician and shot maker, while McMillan and Lammie are credited with reinventing the role of a sweeper.

Once just “the lads with the brushes”, their physicality has evolved the position to the extent that the curling cognoscenti consider it to now be “a sweeping game” rather than a throwing one.

But it is the coalescence of their personalities that amplifies all that sporting talent. And underpinning the team are two key things – total honesty and trust.

As McMillan puts it, “If one of us is in the wrong, the rest can say so”, while the more measured Mouat describes it as “knowing the different things to say to get the best out of each other”.

Individually, they are all very different.

Hype man McMillan is lively enough for all four of them; Hardie is the logic guy, an engineer by trade; Mouat is thoughtful, reflective and calm; Lammie is the quiet, reliable presence; and Waddell the experienced head in the background.

It might be labelled as ‘Team Mouat’ – as per the convention of naming a rink after its skip – but this is very much a collective. In fact, Mouat is keen to share the spotlight.

“Bruce is very different from a lot of skips,” explains BBC Sport pundit and 2022 gold medallist Vicky Wright. “A lot of them are clearly the leader but the GB team operates so well because they function on a level playing field.

“The dynamic they’ve got works because they all bring a different aspect to the table and they all respect that. That’s a massive part of why they’re so successful.”

It is instructive to see how comfortable they are in each other’s company and with the position in which they find themselves.

All five have been right in among it in Cortina these past couple of weeks, be it stopping for a chat in the street or in restaurants, meeting friends and relatives, watching other British athletes compete.

Or – in Mouat’s case – going pillowcase shopping and “spending far too much money” on the morning of the semi-final.

Even in the moments before the final, McMillan and Hardie were sharing a laugh with a journalist; Mouat was picking out familiar faces in the crowd for a smile and a wave, and Lammie and Waddell were casually studying the Canadians warming up.

This is their stage – but for how much longer?

In a place where history peers down from the wooden bleachers, these boys could not quite make some of their own by becoming the first GB men’s rink in over a century to win Olympic gold. But will they go again?

Mouat was adamant afterwards that he would. McMillan, Lammie and Waddell seem minded to, as well.

Hardie’s appetite is less clear. Beijing almost broke him, and the tears that streamed down his face in Cortina perhaps said the words that he himself could not.

“It’s a little bit numb just now. I don’t know how I’ll process it all,” he said. “When you don’t achieve your goal, you have doubts and it’ll be the same again now. Maybe it will never happen.”

What is known is that Team Mouat will not defend their world title in Utah in April.

Scotland’s representatives in that will be decided by the outcome of the national championships next weekend – live on the BBC Sport website, app and BBC iPlayer.

Team Whyte are favourites to fill that spot and – given they are currently ranked fifth in the world – could it be that they perform strongly there and become GB’s pre-eminent men’s rink by the time the 2030 Games in France comes around?

That is a debate for another day. First, this team want to mark what they have done, not just in the past 10 days of competition, but in their entire nine years together.

“Four years ago I was in a bad place – I didn’t even want to drink,” Hardie said. “The rest of the guys went out and I went and sat in my room.

“I still regret that so, tonight, I’m going to make sure I try and celebrate this week because it’s been memories for a lifetime.”