EVE’S STONE IS PRECIOUS
Magic Muirhead sinks China with her last throw of the ice
EVE MUIRHEAD admitted she was happy to nail a suddendeath stone as GB’s women edged out China in a roundrobin thriller.
The Scots foursome recovered from losing their first game of the day to beat the Chinese in a Winter Olympics cracker.
Muirhead’s side were 5-3 down but levelled at 7-7 to force an extra end at the Gangneung Ice Arena in Pyeongchang.
The Scot then held her nerve with the final stone to make sure of an 8-7 success, a result that lifted them to third in the standings.
It was a vital win having been well beaten 7-4 by the United States earlier in the day.
And Muirhead said: “It came down to a last stone this morning and we lost out – but that’s the job of a skip, to nail those crucial shots. The girls played great and we showed a lot of guts and determination. Our heads could have gone down after the USA game but we stayed positive.
“Experience helps and we are the two most experienced teams here. Betty (Chinese skip Wang Bingyu) got the bronze in Vancouver and we got it the Games after.
“If you’d said at the start of the week I’d have won two and lost one after three games I would have taken that.
“It takes a bit of time to get used to the conditions and it’s tricky out there. We’ve adapted quickly and it showed during the end result.”
Coach Glenn Howard was disappointed with the USA loss but like Muirhead praised his players for how they responded.
He said: “I was really proud of the girls, they weren’t at their best for five or six ends and it was a little scrappy. They hung in there and then played brilliantly.”
In their only game of the day, Kyle Smith led the British men to a 6-5 win over Japan.
He said: “The Japanese are a good team and we knew what to expect. The boys played a good latter half of the game.”