WOULD YOU ADAM ’N’ EVE IT!
Muirhead leads GB to semis with win over all-conquering Canada
SIXTEEN years after Rhona Martin sent down the stone of destiny for Winter Olympics curling gold, Eve Muirhead fired the pistol shot that floored a giant and kept Great Britain on course to repeat history.
The bare fact is that Muirhead and her team beat Canada 6-5 and are in tomorrow’s semi-finals, where they will face Sweden.
Canada had never failed to make the podium in men’s, women’s or mixed doubles curling in the 20 years since it was added to the Games.
Team GB’s win certainly caused a stir among the sport’s followers — and it extended to accusations of betrayal aimed at Britain’s coach Glenn Howard, a winner of four world championships in Canadian colours.
Within 20 minutes of this match finishing, his Wikipedia page was edited, presumably by a Canadian, to brand him a ‘traitor curler’.
Overstating things, perhaps, but it is also a measure of how strongly they feel in Canada about sliding stones down ice.
It is an obsession fuelled by the sheer dominance of Canadian teams, who had won six of the previous 11 Olympic gold medals available.
All of which makes this win by Muirhead’s rink quite exceptional. Canada have been in alarmingly weak form, but as reigning world champions they were seen as the team to beat. The pivotal moment came in the penultimate end, with the score at 4-4 and Muirhead staring at defeat.
Canada had two stones in the house and two more guarding, but the 27-year- old skip pulled off a four- stone cannon that brilliantly limited the damage to just one.
Usually so reserved, she leapt across the ice. At 5-4 down but with the hammer, Britain had their chance in the final end. Muirhead took it with a two-stone win for 6-5.
‘That game was massive,’ said Muirhead, who won bronze at Sochi 2014. ‘I kind of knew the outcome, win or lose, and it would have made it hard if we had dropped that game. As a team, we played a fantastic game, very high-class, and that was always going to be the case for Great Britain v Canada.
‘In the ninth, that was the big shot and it turned the tables a little bit. As a skip, these are the shots you have to make. Really pleased it came off, and to book ourselves in the semi-final is really special. When I threw it, I was just hoping it was going to come off and the angles were going to work out.
‘Many people have spoken to me about this jump but I can’t actually remember it. I’m just glad that I landed safely on two feet.’
Understandably, Howard, 55, had mixed emotions. ‘It’s too bad that it came to us knocking out Canada,’ he said. ‘I’ve had the Maple Leaf on my back and I’m proud to wear that, but I was hired two years ago and proud to put GB on my back. I was 110 per cent here for Britain today.’
It completes an impressive turnaround for Muirhead, whose side drifted into difficulty in the round robin but closed with three straight wins to qualify with a 6-3 record.
Kyle Smith’s men’s team faced the Swiss this morning in a play-off to qualify for the semi-finals.