Tom Brewster aiming to take next step towards Olympic glory

Good things, Tom Brewster trusts, come to those who wait. He has waged a battle to obtain supremacy within the ever-competitive world of Scottish curling for most of his adult life, the tides of form ebbing and flowing, the sands of squads ever-shifting, as he and his rivals have sought to embed themselves closest to the house.

Tom Brewster is hoping this week's European Championships is the next step towrds the Winter Olympics in South Korea. (Picture: Alex Livesey/Getty

Now 42, it has been more than two decades since the Fifer was crowned world junior champion and his trophy cabinet is far from bare. World championships medals but greatest of all, an Olympic silver. Yet his trinket from Sochi 2014 was plundered almost in absentia, Brewster an idle reserve for David Murdoch’s all-but-one conquering crew.

This is not quite how dreams play out. Which is why peaceful divorce arose and a quest was renewed around a new line-up, one which this week will take to the ice at Braehead Arena for a European Championships that represents a significant staging post en route to the next Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, two years hence.

“If we go to the Europeans and get a medal, it will help,” acknowledges Brewster, pictured, who has spent the past week in Canada honing his preparations.

“All these things add up. But there’s no point worrying about the Olympics. We just have to go well at all these other events in the run-in to the Games and see what happens.

“My goal for many years, going back 20 years of my career, has been to play at an Olympics. That’s one of the things on my bucket list and that hasn’t changed any. If any, it’s fuelled the dream even more, being at one and knowing what it’s like. It’s pushing me further and I want to achieve that.”

Murdoch still remains his impediment-in-chief but it was Brewster who came up trumps over his former colleague and long-time foe in last month’s play-off to fly the flag for Scotland in the Europeans. Surviving one tense skirmish, the victor there admits, adds another layer of armour for the impending scraps.

“It’s great to get one over one of the Scottish teams,” he affirms, “because you’re competing to represent your country but it doesn’t mean it will be the same next time we beat them.”

Eve Muirhead, the 2014 Olympic bronze medallist, will head the home assault in the adjoining women’s Europeans when the championships begin on Saturday.