World championship curling hopeful Vicky Wright re-joins NHS front-line at Forth Valley for coronavirus fight

current medical emergency – and that’s exactly how it is for Vicky Wright too.

The 26-year-old who lives in Stirling is a general surgical nurse at Forth Valley Royal hospital in Larbert – as well as the lead in Eve Muirhead’s curling rink.

Wright will be adorned in medical uniform and protective equipment to tackle the coronavirus crisis in her role with the NHS this week, rather than the World Championship medals she was expected to win as part of the Scottish national team, curling team.

Many will say with the work they do – and are doing right now – she, and her medical colleagues, deserve one though, but sport is on the back burner for now.

The nurse has cancelled her current career break and she’s swapped one team for the other to face a more formiddable opponent on the medical frontline than curling could ever present to her.

After taking time away from nursing to focus on her world championships and Olympic ambitions, she admits to feeling a “combination of the disappointment, and awareness that public health had to be the priority” when the world championships were cancelled with the team already in Canada earlier this month.

But understandably her sense of duty and pride in her job made her keen to help out her NHS colleagues as much as she could on her return.

She explained: “I have always been very lucky that both my work and the British Curling programme both appreciated how important both facets were to me.

“My nursing was full time and I juggled my curling around that, but in July 2019 my curling went full time. Both the NHS and British Curling enabled me to do one shift a week throughout this season. It was something I really enjoyed and I didn’t want to lose my skills and it was good to have something else other than just curling, it really kept me grounded.

“When we flew in we started seeing other big Canadian sporting events being cancelled and it became more evident then that our champs probably wouldn’t go ahead.

“It was a weird situation and a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and we were absolutely gutted. But we could see there were other much bigger priorities than sporting events which are now on the back burner.

“They have to take second place to what is happening just now and when I went into work last week it really sank in.

“There was no world champs and the bigger picture was that helping out at home was more important just now.”

She’s on the night-shift this week as more cases of the coronavirus pandemic that has shutdown Europe come to light to add to the current figure of __ in the Forth Valley this week – in addition to the other ill patients who require hospital treatment, A different set of colleagues to support, and her curling colleagues in Eve Muirhead’s rick are doing just that too.

“Once I was home I contacted my supervisor and said I was back to do whatever I could to help. For now I am picking up extra shifts.

“There is an amazing team spirit on my ward and and positive approach from everyone and we are taking this all in our stride and we will all pull together. We are fully informed and prepared so we are ready and it is nice to know that my curling team mates are so proud of me and want to help me as well in any way they can.

“[My curling colleagues] know it is my time to go back to work, but they also know I am still training as an athlete, like them.

“I am very fortunate that I am getting all the support I can get from the British Curling programme and the strength and conditioning coach Harry Booker has developed a programme for me around my shifts so I have a routine.

“I find it incredibly important to have a plan so I can incorporate my training goals around my work. Everyone can benefit from setting themselves a plan of action just now and targets for the next few weeks that they can achieve.

“I love my job and I love my curling so having that balance and flexibility really is the best case scenario for me.

“It is why I do it and why I need it and I am just so grateful that both parties see the benefits.”