Winter Olympics 2022 - Eve Muirhead's rink produce dominant performance to secure Team GB's first gold medal in Beijing

It took until the final hours of Beijing 2022 but Great Britain finally have a Winter Olympic gold medal. Eve Muirhead's outstanding women's rink followed the achievement of Rhona Martin's British team at Salt Lake City in 2002, dominating Japan in a final thrashing in which there rarely seemed doubt of who would be standing atop the podium — and in the end victory was achieved with an end to spare.

Ad/> Muirhead played beautifully, picking her shots with the hammer expertly and controlling affairs throughout, a calm presence at the heart of all Britain did well. Beijing 2022GB jump two places in women's curling standings after ROC and Canada lose12/02/2022 AT 04:35 Indeed the entirety of the gold medal winning team played superbly — lead Hailey Duff set the tone from start to close, third Vicky Wright hit takeout-after-takeout with laser-guided precision to consistently set up her skip, and Jennifer Dodds put doubles disappointment behind her to win her first Olympic medal.

For Muirhead, though, this was a fitting end to a miraculous campaign that appeared destined for disaster in the round-robin. Britain had been some way below their best on several occasions in their early action, and but for a succession of results that all somehow fell in Team GB's favour would have been heading home without a medal.

But 2014 bronze medallist Muirhead held her nerve come the crunch ties to join Martin in an extremely select group. She adds another global title to her three World Championship wins — British curling's youngest ever Olympic skip now with the crown she so coveted.

Beginning with the hammer, Great Britain took two from the opening end. With one stone from each team adjacent to each other at the back of the button,