Scotland’s curlers win gold

SCOTLAND took gold at the Gruyère European Curling Championships in Moscow yesterday when 21-year-old Eve Muirhead led her team to an overwhelming 8-2 win over defending champions Sweden.

The last time Scottish women won a European curling title was in 1975 – fifteen years before Muirhead was born.

On the way to the final, Sweden had sailed through the week-long competition undefeated, including being handed a win by the Scots in the round-robin when, most unusually, the Scots ran out of their allotted time and could not complete the game.

However, yesterday was an entirely different story as the Scots, clearly more relaxed and focussed, grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck from the off. They started without last stone advantage and opened by stealing singles in each of the first two ends.

After blanking the third, Sweden had their first real chance to score in the fourth end, but their fourth player Maria Prytz was facing three Scottish counters as she played, and came up short, giving Scotland a further two shots, for 4-0.

Scottish pressure told again in the fifth end, and once again there were three Scottish counters in the house when Prytz came to play. This time she was heavy with her draw, giving Scotland another steal of three and a most unexpected 7-0 halftime lead.

The Swedes finally got on the scoreboard in the sixth end, scoring one, but the Scots charged on as Muirhead scored a single in the seventh with a drive that could perhaps have yielded more.

The Swedes scored a consolation single in the eighth end, after Muirhead played a fantastic pick-out of a Swedish stone in the house that was all but frozen on a Scottish counter.

After this, the Swedes conceded at 8-2 to Scotland, with no hope of matching what had been an outstanding performance both by Muirhead, who was scored at 89% success rate in the official stats, and her team, who performed at 84% in comparison with Sweden’s 73%.

Afterwards, an elated Scottish skip Eve Muirhead said, “this has been one of the medals I’ve wanted. Last year we took silver against Sweden and this year we took gold – you couldn’t ask for any more. We just piled on the pressure from the start and we got a few mistakes out of the skip, and as soon as they made any mistakes, we just pounced”.

She added, “we had control in every single end. When it gets past that fifth end and you’re quite a few up, and you know you’ve not won it yet, you’ve just got to keep going and I think we did that well”.

“It was one of those games. We knew it was going to be tough, but as soon as she (Swedish fourth player Maria Prytz) missed in the first end and then again in the second you could see she wasn’t happy, so we just piled on the pressure. Even though you are five or seven up, in your head it doesn’t feel like that, you’ve just got to keep focussed - they could get a three and be right back in it”.

Reviewing her entire campaign, she said, “we didn’t start the week well, but we did the right thing. Every game we got better and better, so I think we peaked at the right time”.

Looking forward, she added, “this was a first major title and we’re still young – Anna’s (third player Anna Sloan) still a junior and I’m only 21, so if we keep training hard and practising hard, who knows?”.