Gay Olympic curling star Bruce Mouat is a ‘soft, gentle soul’ with his sights set on gold

Name: Bruce Mouat

Country: Great Britain

Sport: Curling

Previous Olympic experience: Beijing 2022

Social Media: Instagram / TikTok

Get off the sidelines and into the game

Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

Who Is Bruce Mouat?

Few names in curling have established themselves as a dominant force in curling in recent years in the fashion Bruce Mouat has. The Scottish skipper of Great Britain’s men’s curling squad returns to the Milan Winter Olympics as a gold medal favorite and a pedigree of winning at every level of competition at which he has competed.

He carries the demeanor of a champion on the ice, focused and stoic as he weaves curling stones in thrilling (and, for opponents, heartbreaking) style, showing little sign of the pressure of the moment getting under his skin. But his partner, Craig Kyle, knows the man behind the public granite exterior.

“He’s a soft, gentle soul that doesn’t want to hurt or upset anybody,” Kyle told CBC Sports earlier this month. “Bruce feels a lot of pressure from people and doesn’t tend to show it.”

That tendency surely came up during his coming out process, most notably when coming out to his teammates. Those worries were met with unquestioned acceptance when he did come out to them, and reflection on that moment gave Mouat insight into where that anxiety came from.

“No one ever said to me that being gay in sport wasn’t allowed,” Mouat said. “There was never one person nor has there ever been that said to me that you don’t belong here. It was just my own fears. There was just a lot of learning to do there. I wanted to be able to be myself, but then was hiding myself away because I felt that that’s what was needed to be able to be a successful team.”

Related

Olympics celebrate curling star’s ‘amazing experience’ coming out as gay
Bruce Mouat has a Winter Olympics silver medal and will chase two more at Milano Cortina 2026. The IOC wants athletes to hear his story.

History-making gay athlete speaks of boyfriend’s love and quest for Olympic gold
Bruce Mouat won the Players Championship, his team’s fourth Grand Slam title this season. The curling star says boyfriend Craig’s love helps.

Bruce Mouat at the Milan Winter Olympics

Mouat and the rest of the Scottish team representing the Union Jack in Milan (Grant Hardie, Bobbie Lammie and Hammy McMillan Jr.) enter the 2026 Winter Games on a historic run that international curling has rarely seen.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by World Curling (@worldcurling)

After dominating the competition in Beijing but falling short in a gold medal match that went to an extra end against Sweden four years ago, Team Mouat captured two World Curling titles, two European Curling titles and two Grand Slam titles en route to holding the world No. 1 ranking for over a year heading into the 2026 Games.

Team Mouat gives Great Britain its first gold medal favorite squad since curling returned to the Winter Olympic docket in 1998, but Mouat himself has a shot at multiple medals for the second straight Olympics. He and Jennifer Dodds will once again vie for a podium finish in mixed doubles curling after finishing fourth in 2022.

The duo enters Milan with some momentum, earning a silver medal at the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, though they’ll likely have to contend with the Italian duo that beat them in the 2025 World final, Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner, who also happen to be the defending Olympic champions.

Subscribe to the Outsports newsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more.

The post Gay Olympic curling star Bruce Mouat is a ‘soft, gentle soul’ with his sights set on gold appeared first on Outsports.