Eve Muirhead’s curling team out to give GB golden finish to Winter Olympics

Eve Muirhead has been tasked with claiming Great Britain’s first and only gold medal of the Beijing Winter Olympics as her team prepare to take on Japan in the women’s curling final on Sunday.

Muirhead watched from the stands as Bruce Mouat’s men’s rink fell agonisingly short against Sweden at the National Aquatics Centre on Saturday, and was among the first to offer her dejected counterparts her sympathy.

But Muirhead will be steely-focused as she targets the one major curling medal that still eludes her, and will be backed up by an inexperienced team that nevertheless comes armed with plenty of momentum and a welcome sense of perspective.

Vice-skip Vicky Wright is a nurse who will return to work on the NHS front-line next week, having juggled her curling training with her vital work during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I feel very lucky that I have the best of both worlds,” said Wright. “If I am having a bad day on the ice, I will go to work and really get a perspective that my life is actually OK, there are a lot of people worse off than me.

“If I am having a bad day at work, I have curling to focus on, which is rewarding for me. I find it keeps my really grounded and I am able to do both.”

Wright is part of Muirhead’s four-strong team, along with Jennifer Dodds and Hailey Duff, that is now tasked with becoming Britain’s first Olympic curling champions since Rhona Martin’s famous triumph in Salt Lake City in 2002.

She works in a surgical ward at the Forth Valley Hospital in Larbert, which was requisitioned as a Covid ward during the pandemic surge.

Wright and the team were in Canada ahead of the 2020 World Championships, which were cancelled two days before their scheduled start date. She came home and immediately helped