Medals update: Muirhead and Team GB dominate Japan for women’s curling gold

Eve Muirhead and her curling team’s win over Japan (a rematch of the match for-bronze four years ago) in the final of the women’s curling competition saw Great Britain avoid the ignominy of leaving these Beijing Olympic Winter Games without a gold medal.

The PyeongChang 2018 bronze medal-winning Japanese team – who struggled from the start and had no answer to the smashing performance of Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jennifer Dodds and Hailey Duff – had to content themselves with the silver medal while Sweden – who beat Switzerland yesterday – finished the marathon curling competition with bronze.

Team GB, led by a commanding performance from Wright, jumped out to an early lead at the National Aquatics Centre (known as the ‘Ice Cube’ for these Winter Games). Skip Muirhead knocked out a Team Japan rock with the hammer (the last shot of an end) to leave two Team GB rocks nearest the button and with a 0-2 lead heading into the second end.

Japan’s skip Fujisawa Satsuki pulled one back in the second end (1-2), missing the chance to draw level with the hammer before a blank third end saw Muirhead and Team GB keep the hammer for the fourth.

The Japanese, who were over-curling often and missing shots you'd expect them to make, got the hammer back in the fifth end, with Team GB leading 1-3. But even so, Muirhead's team stole another point to make it 1-4 heading into the mid-match break.

Great Britain, who'd already beaten Japan in the round robin stage of these Games, continued to cruise into the seventh end as things began to look decidedly bleak for the Asian side. Skip Muirhead – competing in her fourth Olympics – put her side into a commanding lead with a full four-point haul in the seventh end to make the lead 2-8 and put one foot