Eve Muirhead's Scottish curlers one win away from Winter Olympics qualification

Eve Muirhead and her Scottish curling team need just one more win to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in February following tonight’s 9-5 victory over Latvia at the final qualifiers in Leeuwarden, Holland.

Eve Muirhead's Scottish curlers have reached the play-offs to qualify for the Beijing Olympics (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images)

An earlier 9-2 win over Estonia had given them the opportunity to guarantee their place in this weekend's play-offs, and the fired-up Scots soon led 3-0. Latvia, who can still qualify themselves, twice closed to within a single shot, but Muirhead dispelled any fears of a nail-biting finish when she counted three stones at the penultimate end.

Scotland will look to complete their round-robin programme with a fifth straight win against Italy on Thursday afternoon.

“We just played a very clinical end,” skip Muirhead said afterwards.

“Hailey (Duff, the team’s lead) played two great shots round their long centre guard and we kept it clean from there.

“They were obviously gambling a bit at the end, one down without the hammer, so they had to take a few risks, but we played a very solid end played a lot of good hits and rolls and managed to see out the game.”

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