Eve Muirhead finds her form as fired-up Koreans lie in wait

GB skip Eve Muirhead shouts encouragement to her sweepers during the action at Gangneung. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

Curling’s home may be Scotland and its status as a national sport secure in Canada but noisy Korean fans have certainly embraced their teams here in Gangneung.

They may not know all the rules but they have been given something to cheer about.

Korean women’s skip Kim Eun Jung has become something a celebrity and her rink pulled off a stunning victory over world champions Canada yesterday.

Muirhead enjoys a day off today but she is back in action tomorrow with Korea one of two opponents.

“The Korean team is really strong and we’ve not beaten them yet,” said Muirhead, after a win over China that left her second in the standings.

“I love the atmosphere out there. Sometimes you can’t hear yourselves think. I can’t wait to play Korea.”

Muirhead maintained a cool head under pressure to restore some momentum to her Olympic campaign yesterday.

She lost out on the final stone of her match with Nina Roth’s American rink but rebounded to beat China’s Betty Wang with the last delivery on the extra end.

Nothing beats curling at the Olympics for incremental drama and yesterday’s matches certainly gave a glimpse of what is to come, even if – in truth – they lacked top quality.

“If you’d said at the start of the week I’d have won two and lost one after three games then I would have taken that,” said Muirhead.

“It takes a bit of time to get used to the conditions and it’s tricky out there. We’ve adapted quickly and it showed during the end result.

“It came down to a last stone against the USA and we lost out – but that’s the job of a skip to nail those crucial shots.”

Meanwhile, Thomas Muirhead insists he is not on a revenge mission ahead of a crunch Olympic clash with Sweden. Kyle Smith’s rink kept their nerve to secure a 6-5 final stone victory over Japan yesterday, meaning a narrow loss to defending champions  Canada remains their only defeat.

But next up are Niklas Edin’s unbeaten Swedish, who swatted aside Denmark and hosts Korea in their  opening two matches in Pyeongchang.

That’s a rematch of the recent European Championship final in St Gallen, in which Smith’s rink were well beaten 10-5.

“That loss will spur us on and we’d like a bit of revenge but it’s not a special game because of what happened at the Europeans, it’s just another game,” said Muirhead. “We’ve beaten them before and if we put it together then we won’t be far away again.”

Muirhead insists the rink are also starting to find their rhythm but admitted harsh words were exchanged following the defeat by Canada.

“The Canada defeat was a bit of a wake-up call and we aren’t going to get away with that performance,” he added.

“Our job was to give Kyle the best opportunity with the last stone and he did the business.”

l Watch the British rink in action on the Eurosport Player at 11am today. Don’t miss a moment of the Olympic Winter Games on Eurosport and Eurosport Player. Go to www.eurosport.co.uk