Trainee hairdresser Holly Burke aims to be a cut above at Youth Winter Olympics

A trainee hairdresser from Hamilton is taking her curling skills to new levels – a Youth Winter Olympics in South Korea.

However, 16-year-old Holly Burke’s tools of choice are not straightening irons and a comb, but a broom and a granite stone, as she prepares to take to the ice as a member of Team GB’s six-strong all-Scottish Youth Curling squad.

The talented teenager, who left Hamilton Grammar last summer, will represent Great Britain in the Mixed Rink in Gangwon, South Korea, later this month, having been inspired by the Olympics of 2018 to get into the sport, aged just 11.

Now, just five years on, Holly has proven her skill on a variety of stages, leading to a call-up to the Youth Olympic squad.

A member of the Scottish National Curling Academy, and the Scottish Curling Future Leaders Programme, Holly has represented Scotland at the National Junior Curling Tournament mixed doubles and been placed third in the Scottish Junior Championships in both 2022 and 2023.

She has also worked hard to earn her place in the GB Youth Team for South Korea, having excelled at a selection day earlier this year at the National Curling Academy, presenting to and answering a series of questions from panel members, before taking to the ice to display her curling ability.

At the same time, Holly has balanced her studies and a part-time job in South Lanarkshire Leisure and Culture’s (SLLC) busy visitor centre café at Chatelherault Country Park.

There are an estimated 1.5 million curlers across Scotland at all levels, many of whom, like Holly, are shrugging off the sport’s often old-fashioned image.

She explained: “Curling is a strategic, fiercely competitive, and physically challenging sport, which requires real athletic ability to be