It goes without saying that last week was a very tough one to deal with.
When you’re part of a bubble for five weeks and you’ve put in months of hard work back home, you want all your efforts to count for something in the end.
But I’ve been involved in sport for long enough to be able to face facts when you have a huge disappointment.
The long and the short of it is that we weren’t consistent enough as a team in Canada and that’s why we didn’t have the World Championships we were hoping for.
We got off to a solid start with two wins in our first two games but we seemed to lose our momentum after that for whatever reason.
Most of our defeats (and some of our wins) came down to last stone, last end.
But that’s curling. After three hours of competition it’s normal for it all to come down to less than an inch.
Consistency, as I say, was a factor and another big reason we didn’t make the top six and the play-offs was we didn’t beat one of the big nations.
Against Canada, Sweden and Russia we got ourselves into a strong position but on each occasion we couldn’t finish it off.
The championships got the right winner – Switzerland – and the right runners-up – Russia.
Who remembers this beauty for three and the WIN by RCF?! 😮
Vote for this shot now in the #LGTTopShots 👉 https://t.co/ivfQn6YHJ7 pic.twitter.com/UH2KUsSyua
— World Curling (@worldcurling) May 12, 2021
Both were strong throughout and Alina Paetz is at the top of her game. Her weight control was superb all week and you’d probably have to say her team has taken over from Anna Hasselborg’s as the number one in the world at the moment.
For us, it’s the end of our season and we’ll have six weeks off.
For Britain to qualify for the Olympics it will have to be done the hard way – via a December tournament.
We don’t yet know the format but it will be a high-pressure environment, that’s for sure, with three places up for grabs.
It’s good that there’s now some breathing space for the whole British Curling programme, for what is going to be a very important season coming up.
And the only other upside of having to take the long road to China is that the qualifiers are just a couple of months before the Games so the teams that come through will be tournament-ready.
All that’s a long way in the future, though. For now, I’ll do my best to switch off from curling for a few weeks but it won’t be easy!
I’ve got so much sympathy for Callum Davidson and the St Johnstone team having to deal with Covid issues ahead of one of the biggest games of their career.
Life in our bubble was a rollercoaster, with positive tests, false positives, changes to match times and plenty of other uncertainty.
The poor German team lost two players after they landed in Canada.
Callum is a football coach but he’s having to react to things nobody in sport can prepare for.
Fingers-crossed Saints are over the worst of it and they can enjoy cup final week.
This will take the pressure off them and pile it on Hibs.
In a tight game, one side feeling they’ve got nothing to lose and the other dealing with the weight of expectation could be a decisive factor.
