Lockerbie curling legend David Murdoch has made the “toughest decision of his life” to leave his role with British Curling to move to Canada.
The 2014 Winter Olympic silver medallist, who was made an MBE last month for services to the sport, will now join Curling Canada as its high performance director.
The 44-year-old coached the women and men to gold and silver medals in Beijing last year as well as back-to-back title wins at the last two World Mixed Doubles Championships.
He said: “It’s probably been the toughest decision I have made in my life and I say that because British Curling has been a huge part of my life as an athlete.
“They shaped me as an athlete, through the transition into coaching which is very difficult, stepping away from everything you have known as an athlete to try to develop yourself as a coach and also through the further transition to Olympic head coach in developing the leadership skills required to do that.
“The help I have been given here and also the support from sportscotland and UK Sport who put me on a leadership training course has been phenomenal.”
Despite leaving he said that British Curling is in a “very good place”.
Following last year’s Olympic success, David picked up a string of honours including coach of the year award from sportscotland and the prestigious Mussabini Medal from UK Coaching.
He said: “British Curling is in a very good place. I am very proud of the legacy and what we have achieved together.
“When you look back more than four years ago we had a vision of how can we be the best and what does it take to be the best and that was about cultural change and getting all to buy in to that change and that is never easy.”
As he switches competitive loyalties, David can, meanwhile, be confident that he will continue to have strong family support since his wife Stephanie is Canadian and their children Grace, Madeleine and Matthew consequently have dual nationality.
“My wife Stephanie is Canadian, so my kids are half Canadian and we have a lot of family in Canada on my wife’s side,” he said.
“I have my family and friends here too, so there were a lot of difficult factors to think about but we thought long and hard about the opportunities that this job has and also the Canadian way of life that we saw as really appealing.
“It’s a huge responsibility and is going to be a big challenge but I’m honoured to have been offered the job and to be taking up this post. We know there’s a lot of work to be done but equally we know there’s a huge amount of talent in that country.”
