Soren Gran believes Scotland's representation at the European Curling Championships which start in Switzerland today highlights a risky strategy within the sport's set-up, writes Kevin Ferrie.
The head coach of the Great Britain programme has spent time working with the rink led by Dave Edwards which claimed a surprise victory at the domestic competition to decide who would represent Scotland, and commended the Aberdeen-based curler on both his success and his professionalism.
However, the fact that what is essentially an amateur rink has the responsibility of earning Scotland qualification for this season's World Championships is a source of worry for Gran.
He said: "Dave showed he was the best team that weekend. He and I have different views on how curling should move forward, but we have worked together and he showed a very, very good attitude to what's going to be in front of him as well. I'm still a coach and I'm going to work to get the best out of that team and that's my job."
Gran is aware that his views on the need to make the sport more professional are at odds with many traditionalists. However, he noted that there is little point in having full-time curlers and then operating a set-up in which amateurs can still represent Scotland on the international stage.
"Of course we are taking a risk every time that we don't send the teams who are prepared in the best way and I think the people who put in the most time are best prepared to play for Scotland," said Gran. "As long as I'm involved in the programme I believe it gives us the best chance to qualify for the worlds and the Olympics."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article