Curling: Muirhead gets harsh lesson at Winter Olympics

Feb 23 2010 by Gordon Bannerman, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

Curling update

TEENAGE skip Eve Muirhead was given a harsh lesson in just how cruel sport can be at the top level.

Crucial errors in matches against the USA and Switzerland left her GB team with a mountain to climb to reach the Olympic medal play-offs in Vancouver.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, UK time, the Blair Atholl starlet squandered two gilt-edged chances to kill off the Americans and enhance her chances of a play-off slot.

Instead, wayward shots allowed the USA to steal an unlikely 7-6 win at an extra end and left the Brits with a three wins, four losses record.

Eve, who had the hammer at the final two ends, admitted: “I put that game down to me. A few slack shots let us down.”

She said: “It was a tricky line. As soon as you’re outside that twelve-foot line you’re not going to get any movement at all, and if you’re inside it, it coups, so that little tweak at the end lost it.”

There was more misery heaped on Eve and her team facing the Swiss in their next match.

Instead of bouncing back into contention, the Brits crashed 10-6.

And a four-shot Swiss steal left Eve shocked and staring at an 8-1 deficit, which proved unassailable.

Talking about the error, she said: “That was a crucial shot and to come up short wasn’t ideal. It’s going to be tough to get back, but we’ve just got to take each game as it comes, and try to perform the way we know we can perform. We’ve got to make sure we win our two games and rely on results elsewhere and see what happens.”

If she can beat Denmark, that would set-up a clash with the unbeaten Canadian. But even two wins would leave the British girls hoping for favourable results elsewhere.

Meanwhile, David Murdoch’s men’s team secured a 4-2 win over the USA after losing out 7-6 to Canada.

They share third place with Switzerland and Sweden with four wins from seven.

Murdoch, whose rink includes Perth’s Pete Smith, said: “It’s another one on the board and we now need to carry forward that game-plan against Germany.”

Perth-based coach David Hay said: “I’m very pleased with that. It’s easy after games like the one against Canada to be frustrated and a bit down, but we’re not going to give up. This was one of our best games of the week.”