Perthshire curlers representing Great Britain at Winter World University Games

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Jet-setting Perthshire curlers have embarked on their latest fantastic experience on the world stage.Three up-and-coming talents from the region headed Stateside for Lake Placid earlier this week ahead of hitting the ice for Great Britain at the FISU Winter World University Games (WUGS).Mark Watt, of Auchterarder and who attends The Open University, is competing alongside James Craik (University of Stirling), Angus Bryce (The Open University), Alexander Haswell (University of Strathclyde) and Jack Carrick (Glasgow Caledonian University).Watt has hot-footed it over the pond following a wonderful four days of competition at the Mercure Perth Masters, held last week at the Dewars Centre.Competing with Team Craik, he navigated through the round robin format and then all the way to the semi-final of the high-profile tournament.The impressive run was eventually ended by Italy’s Team Retornaz, who were then edged out in the showdown match by Olympic silver medallists Team Mouat.Watt’s team-mate and skip, James Craik, said: “We had a great run last week and it really did give us a boost, because this was one of the strongest fields we’ve played in at Perth Masters.“To finish off in a semi-final spot was really, really good and shows good promise for the week ahead.“Beating these higher ranked teams who are playing in and winning Grand Slams and challenging them on a consistent basis is showing the progression we’re making out of the juniors and that we can compete with all the rest of these top men’s teams, which is very encouraging.”Watt’s sister, Laura Watt, was also on the plane bound for America and will line-up with familiar faces in Team Henderson, who she plays with all the time.Perth’s Holly Wilkie-Milne is part of the