Muirhead desperate for Scottish public to start warming to curling
0 The Muirhead siblings: Glen, Eve and Thomas. have curling on in a sport bar It’s fantastic over there and I’d here, or anything like that. love it to be as big over here.
“I was out in Canada and “As an athlete, what I can do went in to a Mcdonald’s to get is produce medals and do well a coffee, and curling was on for the sport and give it more the TV. In a Mcdonald’s. That’s publicity, and I’d like to think how mad they are about it. You I do that. Beyond that it is just are playing in all these towns about being a good role model you’ve never heard of and the for the sport. I love doing that.” stadiums are jammed-packed. Muirhead – chasing a first gold since 2011 at the Europeans following three silvers and two bronze in the five years since – hopes that this could be her rink’s time because in one crucial sense curling has now earned a rightful place in the sporting hierarchy in Scotland. For the past three months she and her team have been training out of the new £3.15 million National Curling Centre within The Peak sports village in Stirling.
“The difference is night and day with what we had before. I wish we had it 20 years ago,” she said. “Having these facilities on our doorstep is fantastic. The ice is prepped specially for us, it’s prepped as close, to arena conditions as it can be. Tony [Zummack] our technical coach is here every day with us. Glen [Howard], our tactical coach from Canada is over for a couple of weeks, and of course he comes to the major events with us. Really we couldn’t ask for more right now.
“I would like to think that at the elite level we are probably one of the top nations [with the centre]. Canada are set apart because they have a lot of high performancecentres.thiscentre, though, has really given us a step forward in our preparations. I don’t believe that many other nations have as elite a performance centre as this.”
If the investment might be considered to put greater pressure on Scotland’s curlers to provide a return, Muirhead can live with that. “If anything it gives us a little more confidence because we know we are better prepared in such a great environment and great conditions,” she said. “It eliminates any doubts you are not throwing it that well because we can come here and play it.”
Muirhead’s rink open their European campaign on Saturday afternoon against Sweden.
DIFFERENT WORLD “In Canada, curling is huge. You walk into any restaurant, any bar, curling is on the TV. I wentintoamcdonald’s to get a coffee, and curling was on the TV”
EVE MUIRHEAD