The European Curling Championships get underway in Helsingborg, Sweden on Friday with Team Paterson, skipped by Ross Paterson, and Team Muirhead, skipped by Eve Muirhead representing Scotland.
Muirhead is a regular at the European Championships having won eight medals at the event throughput her career, including gold in 2011 and 2017.
She is not complacent, despite her stellar record, but she admits she does put pressure on herself to perform well.
“I have high expectations of myself having medalled at eight European Champs in a row and I think the field is getting stronger every year, with new faces coming along in teams who have earned the right to represent their countries,” the 29-year-old said.
“However we are ready for this first major of the year. We have had a win on Tour, we have qualified for the knock-out stages in the majority of events we have played in so far, so we feel like we are in a good place and this event has come into our calendar at the right time for us.”
Muirhead had hip surgery last year but has regained her fitness and her experience will be invaluable to her teammate, Vicky Wright, who makes her playing debut at the event.
“For Vicky it is her first European Championships and she is excited and of course apprehensive as well. That is normal,” said Muirhead.
“To get new experience all you can do is play these events, so for her it will be good and for Sophie Sinclair our fifth, events like this are just going to give her heaps and heaps of confidence. I hope she will be able to learn quite a lot from being around us, as an experienced team.
“What we are hoping for is to come away and really know that we have done the best that we can, to know we have performed well throughout the whole week, support each other the best we can and leave no stone unturned. Hopefully if we can do all that, the performances will take care of themselves,”
Scotland’s men and women both take on Norway in their opening matches on Saturday 16 November with the round robin phase continuing until Thursday 21 November. The men’s semi-finals will take place on Thursday 21 November, while the women’s semi-finals will be held on Friday 22 November. The bronze medal matches take place on Friday 22 November, and the finals on Saturday 24 November.
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