The sport's governing body, the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, has halved the shortlist for the academy's potential home, ruling out bids from the Fife Curling Trust for sites in Cupar and Glenrothes.

The Kinross bid, put together by the Scottish Curling-Ice Group and the Green Hotel, and a proposal at Ratho will now work with the Royal Club to enable the board to make a final decision in October.

In June RCCC officials conducted site visits and on-site meetings with each of the four bidders, and sportscotland carried out a preliminary assessment of financial plans.

Board members have now decided not to pursue the Fife plans, but Fife Curling Trust was "commended for the high quality of their bids and the Royal Club will continue to work with them to look at the opportunities for a facility in the area".

Trust chair David Steel said gaining the National Curling Academy would have been a bonus, but the group's original plan of establishing a Fife rink remained unchanged.

"Overall we're a bit disappointed, but at the end of the day we didn't set out to have the academy," he said.

"We'll revert back to Plan A again and what we wanted in the outset."
Mr Steel said he believed Fife's geography played a part in the national academy decision, with the Royal Club feeling the proposed sites would be "too far from the central belt".

Without the extra facilities needed for a national academy, a new Fife rink would be a more basic, practical complex.

Hosting the academy would have helped financially, "however we have to cut our cloth accordingly".

Fife Curling Trust hoped to roll out its plans in a couple of months, aiming at this stage for a six-sheet rink with the preferred location being Cupar's Duffus Park.

The Kinross bid proposed five sheets of curling ice, offices for the RCCC, a home for the National Curling Academy and a national curling museum.

Scottish Curling-Ice Group spokesperson John Minnaar said: "We are delighted to be on the shortlist of two, and we are working hard to present our case in time for a final decision in October."