Bruce Mouat: Olympic final defeat adds 'fuel to the fire' for Capital curler's 'ultimate dream' of gold in 2026

Edinburgh's Bruce Mouat is proud of his silver medal from Beijing but is determined to go one better in 2026 when the Winter Olympics go to Italy

The 27-year-old from Edinburgh led his team to within a whisker of Olympic glory, ending up on the wrong end of a narrow 5-4 defeat against Sweden in the final at the Ice Cube.

Mouat, Bobby Lammie, Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan couldn’t quite overcome Niklas Edin’s impressive Swedish team as they had to settle for second-best in Beijing.

And Mouat, who also lost the mixed doubles bronze medal match with childhood friend Jennifer Dodds, is already looking at Milan-Cortina 2026 and beyond.

He said: “It definitely added fuel to that fire, the fire was already lit, but just being so close to having that gold medal and being literally centimetres away from making that last shot, it makes me want to go back and really achieve my ultimate dream of winning a gold medal.

“We’re going to aim to go for that gold medal at the Olympics in Italy. The fact it’s closer to home is really special and hopefully our friends and family can go to that one as well.

“But it takes a lot of hard work and time and effort to get to there and we have to thank The National Lottery for all the funding they have given us and everyone that funds The National Lottery is really funding our chance to make it to the Olympics.

“We’re going to have to work hard to be at the next Olympics, but we’re a young team so we’re going to have that opportunity I think.”

While Mouat and his men were ultimately disappointed with Olympic silver - showing how ambitious the quartet are - after having time to process their achievement, the feeling of pride has begun to sink in, with the help of the British public.

“It feels a lot better and I just wish we could’ve come away with that gold, but we’re still really proud of how we got the silver and we had such a good week,” added Mouat, whose rink are four of over 1,000 athletes able to train full-time, access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering technology, science and medical support thanks to vital National Lottery funding.

“There’s been a lot of hard work, obviously training five days a week, three sessions a day and obviously we’re full-time athletes.

“It was our first Olympics, and it was a really high pressure environment, so to come out of it with a medal, we’re very proud.

“We’ve not really experienced anything like this in our lives like this before, so to come back yesterday and to really realise what impact we had over there, it makes us very proud and it’s almost more than what the medal can give us.

“Just knowing that we have inspired people to hopefully take up curling is a really good win for us as well.”

*No one does more to support our Olympic and Paralympic athletes than National Lottery players, who raise more than £30 million each week for good causes including grassroots and elite sport. Discover the positive impact playing the National Lottery has at www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk and get involved by using the hashtag: #TNLAthletes