The busiest athlete at these Olympics finally caught a break on Friday. Bruce Mouat, after enduring 16 consecutive days on the curling rink, likely needed this pause to reflect on a journey that has oscillated between heartbreak, setbacks, and an inspiring comeback, all culminating in a shot at the gold medal this Saturday.

All that stands between him, along with teammates Bobby Lammie, Grant Hardie, and Hammy McMillan, and the pinnacle of their careers is a victory over Canada, which would add the most coveted title to their two world championships.

The challenge? Canada is a formidable opponent—they defeated Team GB decisively in the round-robin stage. Moreover, they might be the only other nation that shares the Scots’ passion for this intriguing and captivating sport.

Yet this is Canada we’re talking about—the same team that faced accusations of cheating just last week over a double-touch incident that sparked a flurry of memes and debates about curling’s ethos. This controversy led to umpires revising the monitoring procedures at the hog line. Truly dramatic times.

If a story needs an antagonist, Canada’s Marc Kennedy has unwittingly stepped into that role, albeit in a somewhat exaggerated manner. Meanwhile, Mouat’s narrative is straightforward yet fraught with its own complexities—he and Jen Dodds excelled in the mixed doubles but stumbled dramatically in the knockout stage, leaving them audibly dejected with a fourth-place finish.

In contrast, Mouat’s journey in the men’s event has been quite the reverse—his team narrowly escaped the round robin, delivered an outstanding performance to hand Switzerland their sole defeat in the semi-finals, and now stand ready to elevate their silver from Beijing 2022 to a gold.

Bruce Mouat is hoping to lead Team GB to curling gold against Canada on Saturday night

Team GB will face Canada, who have generated headlines after being accused of cheating earlier in the competition

If Mouat, 31, carries that fast finish to the top of a podium in Cortina on Saturday, he will join the likes of Rhona Martin and Eve Muirhead as a curling gold medallist in this century and will emulate a Scottish farmer named William K Jackson from the last. Jackson’s win in 1924 marks the one and only time a British male team has taken the Olympic gold.

Martin, now Rhona Howie, is one who believes it will happen. ‘Bruce has been here so many times in big championships and he raises his level when the stakes are highest,’ she told Daily Mail Sport on Friday.

‘Canada will be tough to beat but Bruce can bring back the gold. They are reigning world champions for a reason.

‘I have known Bruce for years. I must have met him 15 years ago when he was a boy. As a young lad he was always quiet, shy, not a shouter. He just got on with it and look how he has done.

‘I’ve known Hammy since he was a baby – I know his parents. Watching them come through like this has made me very proud.’

The family trees of curling have many overlapping branches and every four years they reach to wider places. It’s a surreal level of transcendence for a game that is simultaneously lampooned and mesmerising. Howie’s Stone of Destiny in 2002 made her a national icon for a while.

Howie added: ‘What we have seen is them improving at the right time. They had their losses, but the only thing that mattered was getting through. The round-robin and the knock-outs are like separate tournaments and now that they are in the final, the rest doesn’t matter. Bruce has the experience to know that.

‘If he is standing there will a shot to win, he won’t be thinking of “Stone of Destiny” or anything like that. He will have laser focus and won’t freeze. It’s why he is so good.’

As a side-narrative of this final, the wider Team GB delegation is now guaranteed to hit their medal target of between four and eight. By the close of Saturday, it could also be five, with Zoe Atkin having qualified in first place for the freestyle skiing halfpipe final.

That appointment pits the US-born Stanford student, a world and X Games champion, against Eileen Gu, whose endorsements from the past year amounted to approximately $23million.

Gu’s decision to ditch the US colours for China have generated almost as many headlines here as the Canadian alleged to have double-touched a curling stone on purpose. If a tired Scot can beat him, he will be entitled to a few of his own.