Kelly Wood

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kelly Wood (born April 8, 1981 in Dundee) is a Scottish curler who has represented her home country and Great Britain and Northern Ireland on an International and Olympic scale.

Wood made her curling debut at Letham Grange Ice Rink in 1999 competing in the World Junior Curling Championships. Playing as a second curler the team finished a respectable 5th position. She has competed in numerous European and World championships and has been skip of the curling team 4 times.

Scotland's curling dominance over the two other host nations of Great Britain secured its place at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. Wood was shortlisted along with nine other female curlers to be considered for a place on the women's Olympic team and became successful to travel to Turin to defend Rhona Martin's Olympic gold that Team GB won in Salt Lake City in 2002. She joined Rhona Martin, Lynn Cameron, Jackie Lockhart and Debbie Knox. As in her other international games, Wood played second throughout the Olympic competition. However, despite beating USA 10-4 after only 6 ends, Team GB's Olympic hopes were shattered as Canada beat Denmark in a nail-biting match in the final end. A win over Canada by Denmark would have enabled Great Britain to go into a playoff to compete for the last semi-final position. When interviewed after the game Kelly conceded Team GB's loss was "gutting" but added "we [Team GB] have to take the positives out of this." Being only 24 years of age is likely to stand Kelly in good stead for entering future Winter Olympics.