Eve Muirhead banishes nagging memory as Team GB tilt for curling gold in Beijing

“It was a moment I wanted to forget but it's been in my head since then,” said Team GB’s curling skip Eve Muirhead.

The moment in question was when Muirhead missed her shot to win the bronze medal at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.

Muirhead has already put that memory to bed at Beijing 2022. Along with team-mates Jennifer Dodds, Vicky Wright, and Hailey Duff, Great Britain have qualified for the women’s curling gold medal game.

GB will face Japan again, their opponents in that bronze-medal match to forget from four years ago. But Muirhead is not viewing that as any kind of omen.

“This is very pleasing that I've got a chance to play for a gold medal now and not a bronze medal.

“It's against the same girls. We love the Japanese girls. they're so much fun and we get on so well with them. They just love curling and that's fantastic for the sport."

The pressure will perhaps be more from personal desire.

“I've got almost every gold medal apart from the Olympic gold medal,” said Muirhead.

“It's always been a dream of mine.”

Muirhead’s path to the Olympic curling final hasn’t been smooth skating.

The team failed to qualify automatically at the World Championships and were obliged to tackle the Olympic qualifying tournament. But Muirhead has called that a “blessing in disguise’, which allowed the team to hone its form.

“Of course there have been times when you doubt whether you'll be back and get that chance to play for that gold.

"As a team we've come from different teams, not even qualifying for the spot [at the World Championships].

“You get home and sometimes you want to throw your shoes in the cupboard and carry on doing something else, but we learned a lot from that.

"We stood up tall. We fought for our spots