European Curling Championships: Scots take bronze and eye 'bigger and better things'

  • Published
Ross PatersonImage source, British Curling
Image caption,

Ross Paterson's rink were playing in their first major championships

Ross Paterson led Scotland to bronze at the European Curling Championships and predicted it will be "a stepping stone on to bigger and better things".

Paterson's rink defeated Mikkel Krause's Danes 7-2 to secure the bronze medal in Helsingborg.

It went some way to making up for Thursday's semi-final defeat by Niklas Edin's world champions Sweden.

"It was our first medal as a team and my first as skip and it was a nice way to finish the week," Paterson said.

"It was important for us. Our objective was to come here and win, but over the course of the week, we came up against some very good opposition and, when you lose a semi-final, all you can do is pick yourselves up and aim to get that medal.

"Edin is obviously a great champion and he is peaking at the right time this week, but as a new team, we have shown that we can compete against the best in the world."

Paterson and team-mates Kyle Waddell, Duncan Menzies and Michael Goodfellow twice had to come back from falling behind in the third-place play-off.

A three at the sixth end turned the match in Scotland's favour and another three at the eighth ended Denmark's hopes.

"Overall, I'm very proud of what the team has achieved this week," skip Paterson added. "We were a bit unlucky at times, but we got lucky to qualify for the play-offs and we're happy with where we're at and what we've achieved - a medal at our first championships together."

Edin's hosts take on Yannick Schwaller's Switzerland in Saturday's men's final, while compatriot Anna Hasselborg's Olympic champions rink aims to retain the womens' title against the Scotland rink led by Eve Muirhead, who is going for a third European title.