Winter Olympics 2026: Curler Bruce Moat targets gold in Italy

He is clearly benefitting from his period of reflection and the improvements made in that time – with the ultimate aim of Olympic gold in Italy in 2026.

“I guess there are a lot of small things I could have done better – I really could have eaten better to fuel myself, I could have probably worked harder in the gym,” he added.

“Curling has probably got a bad reputation for people thinking you don’t need to go to the gym – but you do, for a lot of reasons.

“I am going to Switzerland next week and there is the potential to play 18 games in the space of six days so that is a lot of impact on your body.

“Each game takes about an hour and a half, you burn about 1,000 calories every time you play – if you are burning up to 3,000 calories every day you have to eat a lot more to fuel yourself.

“So there were a lot things I needed to educate myself on and I was lucky to work with a nutritionist to get that information and understand why I need to eat more and what I need to eat to get those slow-burning carbs.”

While their selection has still to be confirmed, Mouat’s rink look set to get the chance to defend their European title in Finland in November.

That marks the start of a huge 16 months, which he hopes will end with Winter Olympic glory in Milan.

“We have got a few targets. We want to get back to the Europeans and defend that title, we then want to be the team that is selected for the Worlds and we want to be able to win that title like we did in 2023.

“Then we are hopefully going to be selected for the Olympics. We got silver last time at the Olympics so if we do one better it would be amazing.

“We are good enough, we are proving that this year, but it is not about accepting we have put in the hard work and it is all going to pay off, we have to continue doing that, then we can definitely aim for that gold medal at the Olympics.”