Lockhart missed out on selection for the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, and had to watch from afar as the team skipped by Rhona Martin won plaudits for becoming the winners of Great Britain's first gold medal in any sport at the Winter Olympics since ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean in 1984. However, Lockhart claimed to have been nothing but inspired by what she saw on television, and was to prove her point in spectacular fashion in the weeks to follow. She started in the buzzing atmosphere that enveloped the Scottish Championships in Glasgow, where her team – largely inexperienced at the highest level apart from herself at skip – overcame Rhona Martin's rink in a three-match final to claim the right to represent Scotland at the World Championships in Bismarck, North Dakota, ahead of the newly famed Olympic gold medallists.