Jacqueline "Jackie" Lockhart (née Steele, born 22 March 1965) is a Scottish
curler who has competed prolifically in major international competitions for Scotland, and for the
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...
team that competes at the
Olympic Winter Games
The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held in ...
. She was part of the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
's
Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympic Games (), also known as the Winter Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event held once every four years for sports practiced on snow and ice. The first Winter Olympic Games, the 1924 Winter Olympics, were held i ...
commentary team for the
Curling
Curling is a sport in which players slide #Curling stone, stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area that is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take t ...
at the
Sochi 2014,
Pyeongchang 2018 and
Beijing 2022.
Biography
Early performances
Having made her international debut at the 1983
European Championships
A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs.
In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...
, she went on to claim a silver medal in her first crack at the
World Championships
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...
in 1985, in which she played second in the Scotland team skipped by Isobel Torrance. The same line-up narrowly failed to win a medal in the following year's championships.
In 1992, as curling awaited full medal status at the Winter Olympics, Lockhart was skip of the team selected to represent Great Britain in the demonstration event at the Albertville Games. The team struggled somewhat, however, and were ultimately edged into sixth place after a final play-off defeat to the
Swedish team skipped by
Anette Norberg
Anette Charlotte Norberg (born 12 November 1966) is a Swedish curler from Härnösand.
She and her team were the Olympic women's curling champions in 2006 and 2010. After winning the 2006 Women's Curling tournament in Turin over Mirjam Ott's ...
. Later in the same season, Lockhart and the same team represented
Scotland
Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
at the World Championships, in which they secured a marginally better fifth place.
Olympics and World Championships
Later in the 1990s, eager to earn a place in the team for the first Olympic curling event to be given full medal status, Lockhart joined the established rink skipped by Kirsty Hay, which had become by then the dominant force in Scottish – and therefore also British – women's curling. In the
1998 Olympics in
Nagano, the team (Kirsty Hay, Jackie Lockhart, Edith Loudon, Katie Loudon and Fiona Bayne) performed strongly, coming within a fraction of an unlikely win in the semi-finals over
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
, skipped by the renowned
Sandra Schmirler
Sandra Marie Schmirler (June 11, 1963 – March 2, 2000) was a Canadian curling, curler who captured three Canadian Curling Championships (Scott Paper Company, Scott Tournament of Hearts) and three World Women's Curling Championship, World Cu ...
. Having missed out, however, the team took a heavy beating in the bronze medal play-off at the hands of
Elisabet Gustafson and her Swedish team. The same line-up took Scotland to seventh place in the World Championships a few weeks later.
Lockhart missed out on selection for the
Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...
Olympics in
2002
The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...
, and had to watch from afar as the team skipped by
Rhona Martin won plaudits for becoming the winners of Great Britain's first gold medal in any sport at the Winter Olympics since ice dancers
Jayne Torvill
Jayne Torvill, OBE (born 7 October 1957) is a British professional ice dancer and former competitor. She and her partner Christopher Dean are considered amongst the greatest ice dancers of all time. The pair won a gold medal at the 1984 Wint ...
and
Christopher Dean
Christopher Colin Dean, OBE (born 27 July 1958) is a British ice dancer considered, with his skating partner Jayne Torvill, amongst the greatest ice dancers of all time. The pair won a gold medal at the 1984 Winter Olympics and a bronze medal ...
in
1984
Events
January
* January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888.
* January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...
. However, Lockhart claimed to have been nothing but inspired by what she saw on television, and was to prove her point in spectacular fashion in the weeks to follow. She started in the buzzing atmosphere that enveloped the Scottish Championships in
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
, where her team – largely inexperienced at the highest level apart from herself at skip – overcame Rhona Martin's rink in a three-match final to claim the right to represent Scotland at the World Championships in
Bismarck, North Dakota
Bismarck (; from 1872 to 1873: Edwinton) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat, seat of Burleigh County, North Dakota, Burleigh County. It is the state's List of cities i ...
, ahead of the newly famed Olympic gold medallists.
In Bismarck, not for the first time, Lockhart made a name for herself for her habit of constantly projecting her infectiously quirky worldview onto what was happening on the ice. She initially baffled spectators, but not her teammates, with her repeated call for stones to be delivered at boob weight – which began to make sense when she pointed out that a call for barrier weight is normally signalled by an arm across the chest. In the latter stages of the competition, despite what was at stake, she and her teammates Sheila Swan, Katriona Fairweather and Anne Laird jumped into an immediate frenzy of dancing every time a burst of pop music was played between ends. None of this distracted from the task in hand, however, and the team won Scotland's first ever women's world title.
In the wake of Lockhart's triumph, much was made of her disclosure that she had deliberately ensured that the stone she used for her last delivery in the final against Sweden was exactly the same one used by Rhona Martin to seal victory in Salt Lake City. The Scottish media dubbed it the
Stone of Destiny, a slightly over-the-top allusion to the coronation stone for medieval Scottish monarchs, and it now sits as an exhibit in a sports museum.
During the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Lockhart played in every game up until the team's defeat to Norway, when as a result of poor performance she was replaced by Debbie Knox. She was stunned to be dropped from the team. According to the BBC news website she said "I was surprised and disappointed. I had a couple of slack shots
n Saturday's defeat to Norway Guess that was it."
In October 2006, Lockhart was a member of the Scottish team that won the
European Mixed Curling Championship. She played third for
Tom Brewster, Jr. Lockhart, playing third for
Kelly Wood won the bronze medal at the
2007 World Women's Curling Championship in
Aomori
, officially Aomori City (, ), is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 264,945 in 136,781 households, and a population density of 321 people per squa ...
, Japan.
Awards
*
Frances Brodie Award: 1998
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lockhart, Jackie
1965 births
Living people
Scottish female curlers
British female curlers
Olympic curlers for Great Britain
Curlers at the 1992 Winter Olympics
Curlers at the 1998 Winter Olympics
Curlers at the 2006 Winter Olympics
Curlers at the 2010 Winter Olympics
World curling champions
Continental Cup of Curling participants
Sportspeople from Lanark
Scottish Olympic competitors
20th-century Scottish sportswomen