Officials at the main base for Scotland and Britain’s elite curlers have launched an investigation as a result of the discovery that they have spent two years training on rinks that are the wrong length.

Full-time funded members of both the British men’s and women’s winter Olympic rinks, as well as the Paralympic wheelchair curling squad are all principally based at The Peak in Stirling and do most of their on-ice training there.

All of those teams won medals at Sochi last year, suggesting that it did not affect their preparations for the last Winter Olympics and Paralympics, but there has been a run of disappointing results since and the revelation that they have been preparing on sub-standard facilities is at best embarrassing for Active Stirling who run the facility.

Ben O’Connell, Active Stirling’s head of performance, admitted that they have been aware of the problem for some time and admitted that the circumstances are being looked into.

“This was brought to our attention in May this year, at the end of the curling season. The current line markings have been in situ since August 2013,” he explained.

“To renew the line markings requires removal of all ice and a subsequent re-build which is only done during a designated maintenance period due to the work required. It is normal operating procedure for ice rinks to be renewed every two years and our maintenance programme is commencing in August this year at which point the lines will be re-applied in preparation for the 15/16 curling season.

“We are carrying out an internal investigation into the matter and will follow appropriate procedure to ensure that we continue to provide ice of the highest quality for all users of our facility.”

The problem does not relate to the length of the sheet of ice the players are working on, but to the distance of markings that have been painted into the ice with the hog lines apparently in the wrong place on both ends, nine inches short at one end and 12 inches short at the other.

That represents a problem for the able-bodied curlers but not for the wheelchair programme since they throw from a stationary point and Graeme Thompson, GB Curling’s director of performance, acknowledged that the situation was far from ideal, but claimed it was difficult to say how much this issue has affected the teams’ capacity to prepare.

“It was clearly disappointing to discover the problem as we would want to have exact measures in place,” he said.

“Whilst the men’s World Championships result was a disappointment last season, since the summer 2013 the curling programme has had significant successes in particular, the two medals in Sochi.

“In that time we have also achieved medals at Junior Worlds Championships and World University Games.

“The curlers involved in those don’t train full time at The Peak but will have used it to a significant degree, so the impact is difficult to assess given the range of results achieved since summer 2013 by a range of curlers.”

Thompson believes the situation reinforces the need for the creation of a separate National Performance Centre (NPC), which has long been identified by the sport’s authorities as a priority.

“From a British Curling perspective we are continually in discussions with Stirling Council and Sportscotland, who are the two major investors in the project, while other key stakeholders are Active Stirling and RCCC,” he said.

“A NPC, whilst hopefully reducing considerably issues such as this is, on the bigger strategic picture, a key necessity to future international success for Scotland and GB. It is key to have a curling only rink, available all year round. There is no such facility in Scotland at present.

“Having this facility will enable our players to train far more to maintain their ability to achieve international success. Many other countries such as Japan, China, USA as examples have at least one, if not more than, dedicated curling rinks available all year round. We need to have this facility as our disposal to ensure these nations cannot create a strategic competitive advantage, in terms of time on task, over us in the next few years.

“Stirling Council has made it clear though that the project must come in budget both in a capital and revenue aspects. There remain some challenges to achieve this but it is anticipated by September of this year that these will be met. We hope there will be a final confirmation of the project then.

“Stirling Council has also been very clear on the need for the Performance centre to sit within a community facility. We understand that philosophy. As an example of that, the full time players and coaches are committed to providing a relevant amount of volunteer coaching hours to all levels of curlers, new and present.”