Poor Eve is left feeling rink rotten

Eve Muirhead went for glory and instead scored curling’s equivalent of an own goal to agonisingly hand Japan Winter Olympics bronze.

But the Scottish skip does not regret the decision to go for broke in a 5-3 loss in South Korea which meant her Great Britain side finished outside the medals in fourth place.

She said: “The shot was there for the game and as a skip you’ve got to try to play that shot to win.

“The shot was definitely there. I just needed it to curl another half an inch and I had it.

“Curling comes down to inches and unfortunately we were on the wrong side of it. I’m absolutely gutted.”

Defeat to Sweden in Friday’s semi-final saw Muirhead, Anna Sloan, Vicki Adams and Lauren Gray fall into the battle for bronze, which they won at Sochi 2014.

In a tense, tactical encounter at Gangneung Curling Centre, Japan won right at the death.

Muirhead threw the last stone of the 10th end but instead of scoring two points for victory – or even one to force an extra end – she pushed a Japanese stone further into the house to seal defeat.

The skip added: “I knew it would come down to the last stone. It’s really difficult to reflect on it just now.” Despite the loss, Britain still finished the Games with a record five medals thanks to snowboarder Billy Morgan who picked up bronze in the Big Air event yesterday.