Best of the rest: Muirhead can add
IF THE Winter Olympics in Sochi make 2014 a pivotal year for Team Muirhead, 2013 was as near to career-defining as it gets without five rings dominating the backdrop.
Eve Muirhead and her compatriots won gold at the World Championships in Latvia in March, making the Blair Atholl woman the youngest skip yet to hold the title.
Muirhead was only 19 when she was thrown in at the deep end at the Vancouver Olympics and it all went horribly wrong. Millions of pounds have been invested during this four-year cycle to give her the best chance of fulfilling her potential in Russia, and she won ten consecutive games at November’s European Championships before being defeated by Swedish rival Margaretha Sigfridsson in the final. David Murdoch’s men won bronze.
Elise Christie will be another Scot to watch in Sochi and the speed skater had a difficult year, including a bout of mumps followed by the death of her grandmother. It was also a rocky 12 months for former world bobsleigh champion Gillian Cooke, who was demoted from her role as brakewoman to British No 1 Paula Walker. The pair crashed when in a good position at the Altenberg World Cup in January.
It was a topsy-turvy year for WBO world lightweight champion Ricky Burns. After the glory of September 2012, when he beat Inter-Continental champion Kevin Mitchell with such great conviction, a change in management meant it was eight months before he returned to the ring.
Burns, now fighting under Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom banner after missing out on a unification bout with Miguel Vazquez and subsequently splitting with Frank Warren,