The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Eve’s team is back on ice track
Team Muirhead show off their skills in first event win of season
Team Muirhead have shown the curling world that they are “back on track”, according to their Olympic medallist skip.
Perthshire’s Eve Muirhead led her new-look line-up to victory in their first event of the season, the Oakville Fall Classic in Ontario.
Long-standing team member Vicki Chalmers left in the summer which has resulted in a change in playing positions and Muirhead herself has had a “mountain to climb” after undergoing hip surgery a year ago.
With two more events coming up in Canada over the next fortnight, they will now be looking to continue their early season momentum in the run-up to the European Championships.
“We’re absolutely delighted to win the first title of the season,” said Muirhead.
“It means a lot and for us as a team. That was our plan to come out pretty strong at the start because we know we have some points to chase to guarantee our Grand Slam spots.
“For myself it has been a mountain to climb coming back from injury and it has been a very hard summer with a lot of rehab focused work, while we are a new combination of players, but things just gelled and went really well.
“As always there are things that we want to get better at but there are a lot of things we can take a lot of positives from and keep getting the small things even better.
“We have put down a marker to show that Team Muirhead is back on track, hopefully winning more titles to come and all of us are delighted.”
Their only loss came in their opening match to Korea’s Team Un-Chi Gim. The next three matches were won to secure a place in the play-offs.
Two Canadian quartets, Teams Balsdon and Rocque, were beaten to set-up a 5-2 final triumph against Switzerland’s World Champions Team Tirinzoni.
New coach Nancy Smith said: “The team have settled in really well into their new playing positions and they were playing in harmony together, reading the ice well and executing great shots.
“When all that comes together you are able to beat some great teams and beating the world champs in the final says it all. The girls can now take a lot of confidence from this early win as they prepare for the rest of this Canadian campaign and the rest of the season.”