Scots overcome Germany to move closer to Olympic qualification

ANOTHER controlled performance from Team Muirhead saw them defeat Germany 7-4 to establish an overall winning record at the Olympic Qualification Event in the Netherlands with their third victory of the competition.

In what was a re-match of their recent European Championship semi-final, the Scots claimed the hammer by winning the last stone draw for the fifth time in five attempts in Leeuwarden and they were immediately on top, registering a two at the opening end and forcing their opponents at the next. After a blanked third end, that pattern was repeated at the fourth and fifth ends to take them into the midway break 4-2 up and after they extended that to 5-2 they maintained that advantage to the end.

“We carried on our good play from yesterday when we played well against Japan,” said skip Eve Muirhead. “We knew that was going to be an important game today and every match will be from now on, but I think that was a very clinical performance and the team came together very well.”

While the stones were rubbed overnight in a bid to generate more curl, the conditions remain challenging.

“It didn’t make an awful lot of difference,” she said. “It’s still pretty straight conditions out there and it’s not curling as much as we are used to, but we’re starting to come together and figuring out the ice quicker.”

She said the secret to that had been the way that she and team-mates Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds and Hailey Duff had bonded, having won every previous competition they have played in as a quartet, including the European Championships at the end of last month.

“We work together as a four very well, we backed each other up, had lots of great communication and just trusted what we were telling each other about different lines and different speeds and figured it out well,” said Muirhead.

With just three places at the

Winter Olympics available, the win over Germany took the Scots into fourth place in the standings with three matches still to play, against teams that are also all still in contention Estonia and Latvia today, then Italy tomorrow.

“At the start of the week we were a bit rocky, but I do think now that we seem to have found our groove and have that eye on the prize that we know we want so badly and we’re just focusing on every single game, with three very important games to come,” said Muirhead.