When Jen Dodds first laid eyes on Bruce Mouat, he was smaller than a curling brush.
The childhood friends met when she was eight and he was 11 at Gogar Park Curling Club, unwittingly casting the first stone in a path that would lead them both to the Olympic bronze medal match.
They came together in what were heady days for British curling, rising through the ranks in the afterglow of Rhona Martin's 'Stone of Destiny' to win Olympic gold in 2002.
World champions Mouat and Dodds became the first mixed doubles pair to represent Team GB at the Winter Games in Beijing.
They finished third in the round robin stage but a 6-5 semi-final defeat to Norway's married couple Magnus Nedregotten and Kristin Skaslien means only Sweden stand in the way of a bronze medal for the Team GB pair.
It’s the bronze medal match for Jen and Bruce, 6:05am tomorrow.#TeamGB | #Beijing2022 pic.twitter.com/6hTTBbtUCr
— Team GB (@TeamGB) February 7, 2022
“We were good friends before we became teammates, so everything was natural to us," said Dodds.
“If we need to have an honest conversation, we just know it’s to make the team better and we don't take things personally.
"The dynamic has been really natural which has been good for both of us."
Mouat's grounding came in mixed doubles, winning four Scottish Championships alongside Gina Aitken but they narrowly missed out on qualifying for PyeongChang 2018, where the discipline made its Olympic debut.
Despite their long history, Dodds and Mouat only competed together for the first time in March 2020 when they won their first national title.
And Edinburgh native Dodds charts her own growth in the sport in parallel to her partner's.
“I think it is a mutual partnership," she said.
"In the past it might have been Bruce making the calls because he had more experience in mixed doubles.
“Over the last couple of seasons, I’ve gained a lot more knowledge so it’s both of us who make the decisions now, rather than just Bruce.”
Their first international competition came at last May's World Mixed Doubles Championships in Aberdeen, where qualifying places for Beijing were on the line.
They won gold, making them one of the favourites for a podium place on the biggest stage of them all and now they are within touching distance.
“Going into the Worlds, we hadn’t really played at an international level so we were going into the unknown,” she said.
“Winning it gave us a lot of confidence and the belief we know we can be there and compete with the best.
“We know we can compete with the best, but also that others teams see us as the team to beat, chasing us down with a target on our back."
Mouat is one of the form curlers in the world right now - guiding his own men's rink, selected for Team GB in October, to world silver in Calgary in April.
"Bruce has had an incredible couple of seasons," Dodds said.
"It's a testament to him and how well he's playing - he can basically play any discipline and be amazing at it!"