Olympic Winter Games, 2002
copyright.The Royal Caledonian Curling Club
Rhona Martin
Curler
1966-
Rhona Martin MBE is a Scottish curler who has skipped the Scotland women's team at both the European and World Championships. She is most famous as the skip of the Great Britain team that claimed the gold medal at the Olympic Winter Games in 2002.
Having taken up curling at the age of sixteen, Rhona martin went on to become one of Scotland’s most celebrated sporting heroes. In 1998 after a long battle and a number of near misses, Rhona won the right to appear in a major international championship where she was skip of the Scotland team that won a silver medal at the European Curling Championships.
In 2000, Rhona again skipped the team that won the Scottish championships entitling Rhona and her team to represent Scotland at the World Curling Championships in Glasgow. A fourth-place finish at the World Championships left the team well-placed to be Great Britain's representatives at the 2002 Olympics.
After almost missing out on the Olympics, Rhona then had to fight illness to be able to take part in the Salt Lake City Olympics. She and her teammates found their Olympic form early, winning five of their first seven matches. Rhona's team surged to a win, guaranteeing them an Olympic medal. After successfully judging an incredibly difficult draw with her last stone in the final against Switzerland the team won gold making Rhona’s team of Debbie Knox, Fiona MacDonald and Janice Rankin Great Britain's first gold medallists in any sport at the Winter Olympics since Torvill and Dean in 1984.
In 2002 Rhona was awarded an MBE for her services to curling and after a 24 year career, Rhona decided to retire from professional curling in 2006 to focus on coaching. Since 2010 Rhona has been the women’s head coach for the British and Scottish curling performance squad.
Rhona is presently part of a five strong coaching team currently at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Interesting facts
- The stone that clinched the victory – dubbed the stone of destiny – is now housed in the Scottish Sports Hall of Fame exhibition in the National Museum of Scotland.
- Rhona has a total of four honorary degrees from the University of Dundee, Glasgow Caledonian University, Heriot-Watt University and University of West of Scotland (formerly University of Paisley).
Our thanks to The Royal Caledonian Curling Club for their help with this information.
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