Gina Aitken (born November 17, 1993) is a Scottish curler from

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

. She won a silver medal as skip of the Scottish women's team at the 2015 World Junior Curling Championships and has competed in the

World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship The World Mixed Doubles Curling Championships are annual curling tournaments featuring the world's best teams of mixed doubles curlers. History The tournament began in 2008 with the 2008 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. Switzerland's m ...

five times.

Curling career

In back-to-back years, 2014 and 2015, Aitken skipped her team to victory at the Scottish Junior Championships, with teammates

Naomi Brown Naomi Brown (born 19 December 1996 in Stranraer) is a Scottish curler. Career Juniors Brown has represented Team Scotland four times as a third at the World Junior Curling Championships. She played third for the Gina Aitken rink at the ...

, Rowena Kerr, and

Rachel Hannen Rachel Hannen (born 27 January 1995 in Edinburgh, Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the s ...

. At the

2014 World Junior Curling Championships The 2014 World Junior Curling Championships were held from February 26 to March 5 at the Waldhaus Arena in Flims, Switzerland, Flims, Switzerland. Men Teams The teams are listed as follows: Round-robin standings ''Final Round Robin Standings'' ...

Aitken's team finished the round robin with a 3–6 record, missing the playoffs. Returning to the World Juniors in 2015, they found much more success. Aitken and Team Scotland finished the round robin in second place with a 6–3 record. In the page playoffs, Team Scotland defeated the number one seeded Canada in the 1 vs. 2 game and Sweden in the semifinals, thus setting up a rematch with Team Canada in the final. In the final, Canada, skipped by

Kelsey Rocque Kelsey Elizabeth Rocque (born March 25, 1994) is a Canadian curler residing in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. She is a two-time World Junior champion skip. Career In 2013, Rocque played for her first University Championship, at the 2013 CIS/CCA C ...

, got their revenge, defeating Scotland 8–2. Earlier in the 2014–2015 season, Aitken and her juniors team also won bronze at the

Scottish Women's Curling Championship The Scottish Women's Curling Championship is the national women's curling championship for Scotland. The championship usually decides which team of curlers is sent to the World Women's Curling Championship, but in Olympic years, the winner must ...

, Aitken's best finish at that championship. Aitken has also competed in the

Scottish Mixed Curling Championship The Scottish Mixed Curling Championship is the national mixed curling championship for Scotland. Team are composed of two men and two women, playing in alternating positions up the team, meaning the lead and third must be of the same gender, and ...

, playing

third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...

for

Bruce Mouat Bruce Mouat (; born 27 August 1994 in Edinburgh) is a Scottish curler. He is an Olympic silver medallist, having skipped Great Britain to a second place finish in the men's team event at the 2022 Winter Olympics. Career Mouat had a very su ...

in 2015 and 2016. At the 2016 Championship they won the bronze medal. Aitken is also prolific in

mixed doubles Mixed doubles or mixed pairs is a form of mixed-sex sports that consists of teams of one man and one woman. This variation of competition is prominent in curling and racket sports, such as tennis, table tennis and badminton (where it is known as ...

, where she has won the Scottish Mixed Doubles title five times. The first four championships, Aitken competed with her longtime teammate

. Each Scottish title earned Aitken the right to represent Scotland at the World Mixed Doubles Championship, with her best finish being 4th at the 2016 Championship where they lost to the United States team of

Joe Polo Joseph Polo (born December 10, 1982) is an American curler who is best known for winning a bronze medal at the 2006 Winter Olympics and being the alternate on the gold-medal winning United States men's team at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Polo wa ...

and

Tabitha Peterson Tabitha Skelly Peterson (born March 6, 1989) is an American curler from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was a bronze medalist at the 2010 World Junior Championships and is a two-time women's national champion. She currently is skip of her own team ...

in the bronze medal match. For the 2018–19 season, Aitken decided to focus on mixed doubles with her new teammate Scott Andrews. Andrews became injured shortly before the Scottish Mixed Doubles Championship, but Duncan Menzies filled in for Andrews and together they won Aitken her fifth Championship. Andrews was healed in time for the 2019 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, where they finished tied for 9th place, losing to Team Estonia in the first round of the playoffs.

Personal life

Aitken started curling when she was only seven years old and comes from a curling family: her father David won the 1986 World Juniors, her mother Morna has competed at two

World Senior Curling Championships The World Senior Curling Championships is an annual curling tournament featuring curlers from around the world who are at least 50 years old. Matches at the World Senior Championships are played in 8 ends played instead of the 10 played in most in ...

, her sister Karina was the alternate for Aitken's silver medal winning 2015 World Juniors team, and her sister Tasha has also competed at World Juniors. Aitken graduated with a degree in Film and French from

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. She works as an account executive at Optima Connect.

Teams

Women's

Mixed

Mixed doubles

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aitken, Gina Scottish female curlers Living people 1993 births Curlers from Edinburgh Sportspeople from Paisley, Renfrewshire Scottish curling champions Competitors at the 2017 Winter Universiade