Eve Muirhead: Olympic gold medal curler admits 'she wanted to throw shoes away' during pandemic

Curling Olympic gold medalists, from left, Eve Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jennifer Dodds, Hailey Duff and Milli Smith.

The 31-year-old struggled as the sporting world shut down due to coronavirus, with the pain of missing out on a Olympic bronze medal in PyeongChang four years ago also eating away at her.

However, all of the agonies of previous Games were swept away as she skipped her Team GB rink of Jen Dodds, Vicky Wright, Hailey Duff and Mili Smith to glory in Beijing over the weekend, defeating Japan 10-3 to claim gold.

It was fitting that Muirhead took the title against Japan, who defeated her in 2018 when her last stone handed the Japanese victory rather than getting the win for the British team.

"The pandemic was hard for me and there were times when I wanted to throw my shoes away and not get them back out again but I learned a lot about myself and I had fantastic support staff that helped me get through," Muirhead said.

"Thank you to National Lottery for their funding to allow me to be a full-time curler and get my dream but I think it's sweet when you have a bit of a rollercoaster and at the end of the tunnel there is always light. For us, it's a gold medal and it's such a fantastic time.

"The 2018 bronze medal game was very hard to take like when you have a shot as a skip to win and you miss, you take a lot of responsibility yourself and I blame myself for that.

"At that time I didn't know whether to come back or not but here I am. To have lost two semi-finals at the Winter Olympic Games and to finally won one and to go on to win the gold, I guess it makes all those semi-final losses a little sweeter."

She continued in an interview with Sky Sports: "If you look back at the last couple of years we didn't even qualify through the World Championships to get a part of Beijing and then we got a squad system put together and topped the Olympic qualifier and here we are now as Olympic gold medallists.

"I really couldn't write it, to be honest. It's been a rollercoaster, but I wouldn't have it any other way."

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