Muirhead ‘gutted’ after voided final stone hands victory to Sweden

No margin for error in Great Britain’s remaining round-robin group games

A “gutted” Eve Muirhead appeared to question the voided final stone which saw Great Britain fall to a 8-6 defeat to Sweden in the curling round-robin phase yesterday.

Britain trailed 6-4 going into the ninth end but levelled to take the match to an extra end.

The Swedes had the advantage of the hammer but Blair Atholl’s Muirhead had the chance to make it difficult for them with Britain’s final stone.

But the stone was voided, leaving the Swedes the simple task of clinching victory with the hammer.

It was not immediately clear if Muirhead had been penalised for not releasing the stone clearly before the red line – known as hog lining – or whether she touched the stone twice leading to her being penalised.

Either way, her final stone was taken off the rink.

The controversial decision potentially leaves The Courier columnist’s medal ambitions in the balance.

It’s a defeat that leaves her rink with three wins from six and no margin for error in their remaining three group games.

“It is the first stone I think I have hogged in my life and I guess when it comes at a time like that it is horrible,” she said.

“When something like that happens, it makes it very tough to take and it’s gutting it finished that way.

“But it just makes it worse when you see it and it doesn’t look like it is but it does come down I guess to inches and millimetres.

“I guess when you see the replays and it looks like all the ones before it, it is hard to take.

“We did get the stone tested and the stone is fine so there is nothing we can do. We have to move on.”

However, Muirhead didn’t appear to have forgotten the issue and later broke her self-enforced Twitter ban to post a picture, which she believed showed her releasing the stone in time.

Tennis, rugby and even football have embraced video technology but despite scores of cameras covering every available angle at these Games, curling’s governing body won’t budge.

“The decision has been made and the players signed off on the score, let’s move on,” insisted British team head coach Anthony Zummack

“Personally I think Eve double touched the stone but there’s no replay rule and speculation is pointless.

“I hear people talking about video replays but I don’t think it’s practical. Eve needs to focus on the rest of her games now.”

At least there was no such drama for men’ s skip Kyle Smith, who held his nerve with the final stone of an extra end to secure a much-needed 7-6 win over Italy and keep alive their chances of qualifying for the semi-finals.

“I didn’t have a lot of confidence and that was one of my worst games of the week,” said the Perth skip.

“I thought about all the times I’ve thrown that shot in practice and tried to stay in the moment and get my weight right.

“It was a must win match to stay in contention with some of the other teams and a couple more wins and things will be looking really good.”

Picture: Getty. Anna Sloan, Lauren Gray and Eve Muirhead look on anxiously as GB slip to their third defeat of the PyeongChang Games.