Men's World Curling Championship: Scots target first gold since 2009

Ross Paterson is Scotland's vice-skip in Las Vegas

Ross Paterson says his Scotland rink has "buried" controversy over their selection to focus on an "overdue" gold medal at the World Championship.

Bruce Mouat's Olympic silver medallists did not have the chance to compete since qualifying coincided with their return from Beijing.

In their absence, Paterson, along with Duncan Menzies, Craig Waddell and Kyle Waddell, won the Scottish Championship.

"We are solely focused on the goals we have set ourselves," said Paterson.

On Team Mouat's public disappointment, he added: "It's something that we are probably not going to get in to too much, it is one of those things which has passed now, we are just trying to look forwards.

"It was a bit of a tough spell, not just for ourselves but obviously the other teams that were involved. It could be easy to get distracted but that is not our plan, we have buried that one."

In Las Vegas, the Scots will compete against United States, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, Sweden and Switzerland.

Sweden are the defending champions, having beaten Team Mouat in last year's final, just as they did at the Winter Olympics in February.

Scotland's last success in the tournament came in 2009.

"With the quality of teams that Scotland has, it feels like a gold medal is overdue but there are really tough teams here," said Paterson. "We know it is a tough task to come out on top at the end of the week but we do have belief in ourselves.

"If we bring the same intensity level to every game we play in, I think we have got a really good chance."