Sheila Swan has been appointed as Curling’s Wheelchair Head Coach for the Scottish and British Wheelchair Curling programme.
It has also been announced that two Performance Coaches, Nancy Smith and Viktor Kjell, have been appointed to the Scottish and British Curling programmes.
The Scottish and British Curling programmes are delivered in-house at the sportscotland institute of sport through a partnership with British Curling, UK Sport, and Royal Caledonian Curling Club (RCCC).
This partnership delivered unprecedented success at the recent Sochi Olympic and Paralympic Games. The men won silver, while the women and wheelchair teams both claimed bronze medals, which was the first time all three teams have succeeded in winning medals in the same Games cycle.
36-year-old Sheila Swan, a former world champion as part of Jackie Lockhart’s successful Scotland rink in 2002, previously coached the Wheelchair team to a silver medal at the 2011 World Championships in an interim role and the Scottish Women’s team to Gold at the 2007 Junior World Championships.
Commenting on the appointment, Performance Director of the Scottish and British performance programmes, Graeme Thompson, said: “I’m really pleased that we have made such strong appointments for these three key roles within the performance programmes. Sheila has a strong track record having won medals at the very highest level of the sport both as a player and a coach, and she will bring that as invaluable experience into her new role as Wheelchair Head Coach.
“It is an exciting time for curling in this country as we strive to continue to deliver success on the world stage. The appointments of Nancy and Viktor as Performance Coaches are important steps in ensuring world-class coaches are supporting our world-class curlers as we continue to develop our programme for 2018 and beyond.”
New Wheelchair Head Coach Sheila Swan said: “I’m thrilled to be appointed the Wheelchair Head Coach. We have some very good players competing for Scotland and TeamGB. I am excited about working with them and the support staff to try and bring more success on the world stage.
“My experiences as a player and a coach have made me fully aware of the pressures and demands the team will have to deal with and I am relishing the challenge.”
45-year-old Scot Nancy Smith also has an impressive prior coaching Curricular Vitae: she was Team Coach when Eve Muirhead’s rink won silver at the 2010 World Championships and has attended 10 World Junior Championships as Team/Head Coach, winning four Bronze, one Silver, and two Gold medals. Nancy moves from the Performance Development Coach position at RCCC to come into the Scottish and British Curling programmes.
29-year-old Swede Viktor Kjell, who represented Sweden from 2007 to 2014, won a bronze medal at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, and gold at the World Championships in 2013 and European Championships in 2009 and 2012. Viktor competed for Sweden at six European Championships, four World Championships, two University Games, and two Winter Olympic Games. He is relocating from Canada to Scotland to take up his full time position.
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
