Eve Muirhead arrived home yesterday with another gold medal and having already set her sights on the biggest prize of all when she looks for an upgrade on the bronze she won at the last Winter Olympics.
The dominant skip in the Scottish women’s game reckons her European Curling Championships victory in Switzerland along with team-mates Anna Sloan, Vicki Adams and Lauren Gray has set them up perfectly for their trip to PyeongChang early next year.
“This gives us a lot of confidence heading into the Olympics. This shows that the changes we’ve made have worked in terms of making us even more competitive in the big games,” she said.
“As a team we want to build on this going forward. There’s a huge psychological benefit from winning the European Championships and putting down a market with our competitors that we’re a tough team to beat and capable of winning on the big stage.”
There was some disappointment at the championships in St Gallen, for the 27-year-old who will be heading to her third Olympics when the Scottish men’s team that contains her brothers Thomas and Glen were beaten in their final as Sweden’s Team Edin avenged Anna Hasselborg’s women, but as she looks ahead to her third Olympics they are heading for their first and she believed this experience will stand them in good stead.
“Getting into that final was the best thing that could have happened for the boys at this stage because they’ve never played in a high pressure game like that final against one of the best teams in the world when everything’s at stake,” said Muirhead.
“The game was outstanding and the shot playing was excellent and they were just inches away from being European champions.
“They’ll learn so much from this championship. It will take time to digest, but it showed what they’re capable of.
“That final will be like every game at the Olympics, every game will be of that calibre and they have learned how to play in that environment with those external pressures and that they can still perform.”
Kyle Smith, the skip of that men’s team which also includes his younger brother Cammy and Kyle Waddell, was very disappointed at having failed with his attempt at a draw which would have taken the match into an extra end, but agreed with Muirhead that they needed to appreciate what they had achieved in earning silver medals.
“On reflection I’m proud of what we’ve done this week. It’s the best curling we’ve played for a while.
“We now need to keep it going and it’s now in the locker for the big event in February,” he said.
“It was good to be playing Norway, Sweden and Switzerland because we’ll be playing against them again in the Olympics and they are the teams in the top 15 in thee world.
“It gives you a lot of confidence to beat those teams and on another day we would have beaten Edin as well.
“So overall we’ll take a lot of confidence from winning our first medal at a major championship.
“We definitely wanted a medal this week to prove we’re in a good place and everything is coming together so perfect timing for PyeongChang.”
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