The Times February 10, 2006
It's an Olympic gold for Britain - before we've even started
From David Powell in Turin
BARELY an hour after the head of the Great Britain team had warned the nation not to expect success at the Winter Olympics. which begin today, Britain was awarded four golds — for a tournament that was played in 1924.
At the first Winter Games, in Chamonix 82 years ago, Britain won the competition for curling, which was then regarded as a demonstration sport. The team had to make do with second-rate medals to celebrate their achievement.
But yesterday the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved a claim that the event should have been regarded as a full medal contest, raising Britain’s gold tally to from eight to nine in the history of the Winter Games.
Although the descendants of each 1924 team member will receive a medal, the team’s win adds only one collective gold to the British team’s historic tally.
The surprise ruling means that Rhona Martin is no longer Britain’s first official Olympic curling champion. When Martin, a Scottish housewife and mother-of-two, skipped the British women’s team to victory in Salt Lake City four years ago, 5.6 million viewers stayed up until midnight to watch her lead Britain to its first gold medal since the ice dancing success of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean 18 years earlier. She was widely acclaimed as Britain ’s first Olympic medallist in the sport.
The IOC looked into the matter after a Glasgow newspaper filed a claim on behalf of the curlers based on information discovered in the Royal Caledonian Curling Club records.
The original medals were awarded to Willie and Laurence Jackson, who were father and son, Robin Welsh and Tom Murray. “I know the whereabouts of only one of the medals,” Roy Sinclair, a Scot who is president of the World Curling Federation, said. “It was kept for many years by Welsh’s son, the Royal Caledonian club secretary, Robin Welsh, who died two weeks ago. Now it has passed to his grandson.”
After 1924, curling was dropped from the Games until 1998. After narrowly missing out on a medal that year, the British women struck gold four years later. Martin is here to defend her title and, with the British men’s team being among the best in the world, it is to curling that Britain is looking for a leg up to the podium over the next two and half weeks.
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