Douglas “Dougie” Dryburgh is an Olympic curler, retired Royal Air Force Wing Commander and currently CEO of Viapath llp in central London. Dryburgh was a successful junior curler in his native Scotland. In his first international tournament, Dryburgh and his Scottish team claimed a gold medal at the 1987 World Junior Curling Championships. Later that year he skipped the Scottish team to a sixth-place finish at the European Curling Championships. Ten years later, Dryburgh was back at the European Championships where he claimed a bronze medal for Scotland. In 1998 he skipped the British team at the 1998 Winter Olympics. They finished in seventh place. In 2005 Dryburgh moved to Ireland, joined up with four other ex-Scots and qualified for the 2006 World Men's Curling Championship by placing seventh at the 2005 European Championships. At the Worlds, Ireland finished in 12th place.
Early life
Dryburgh was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland on 30 January 1966. Initially the family lived in Brighton where his father, Jack Dryburgh, was a professional ice hockey player. The family moved to Aviemore, Scotland when he was 3 years old, where his father managed Aviemore Ice Rink. Dryburgh' s mother, Jaqueline Dryburgh, a former professional ice skater, was the local ice skating teacher. After a move to Solihull from 1977/78 and then back to Aviemore until 1980, the family settled in Kirkcaldy, Fife.
Dryburgh started curling at Aviemore Ice Rink when he was 12. When he was 14 he was the lead player on a team skipped by his brother Stewart, and including David Smith at second, for the 1981 Scottish Junior finals where the team finish in third place. He started skipping the team in 1986 and in his first year reached the final of both the Scottish Junior and Scottish Men's Championships. In 1987 he again reached both finals; a feat no male junior skip has yet managed to repeat. Dryburgh was unbeaten when he won the Scottish Junior Curling Championship in 1987 and that year won every junior tournament on the circuit and for the first time a Scottish team was favourites to win a world title, and in Canada. He went on to defeat Hugh McFadyen's outstanding Canadian Junior Champions, who had also won their national title unbeaten, to win the 1987 World Junior Championship in Victoria, BC, Canada. The final holds the record for the lowest scoring world curling final at 3-2 and Dryburgh was nominated as the All-Star Skip. Later that year Dryburgh skipped the Scottish men's team at the 1987 European Men's Championship in Obersdorf, Germany where the team finished in 6th place. On joining the RAF in 1990 Dryburgh spent much of his time in England which meant he was unable to regularly practice his sport. However, in 1994 he was posted to RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland, which meant he could practice regularly and it was at this time his team was selected as one of eight top British teams of the time to enter the Olympic playoffs, a 3-year selection cycle leading up to the 1998 Winter Olympic Games. The selection elimination cycle culminated in a double round robin playoff between the final four teams skipped by Dryburgh, David Smith, Hammy McMillan and Colin Hamilton. Dryburgh and 5-time European Champion McMillan reached the final, both with a 4–2 win-loss record. Dryburgh won the final 9–4 and qualified for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. It was the first time since the 1924 Winter Olympic Games in Chamonix, France that curling was an official event in the Winter Olympics. A month later Dryburgh qualified for the 1997 European Championships in Fussen, Bavaria, Germany. The team narrowly lost the semi-final to Andy Kapp's home team and eventual winners. However, Dryburgh went on to take the bronze medal beating the reigning World Champions, Peter Lindholm's Swedish team. At the Olympics, despite starting as one of the favourites, Dryburgh ended up with a 2–5 win-loss record, missing the playoffs and finishing in 7th place. In 2005/06 Dryburgh played his final year for Ireland, skipping the team through qualification at the 2005 European Men's Championships in Garmisch Partenkirchen to the 2006 World Men's Curling Championship in Lowell, Massachusetts. It is the only time Ireland has qualified for the World Men's Championship. Dryburgh retired from competitive curling in 2006.
On leaving the RAF in 2006, Dryburgh joined the Executive team at NHS Blood and Transplant where he served as an operations director for 6 years. After a short stint at QinetiQ plc, he joined Viapath llp, the Serco plc controlled healthcare joint venture as COO in 2014. He took over as CEO in 2016 and is based in central London. He also serves as a Non-Executive Director for the British Athletes Commission.
