Eve’s so cool on the ice
WINTER
EVE MUIRHEAD kept a cool head under pressure to restore some momentum to her Olympic campaign.
Muirhead lost out on the final stone of her match with Nina Roth’s American rink but then rebounded to beat China’s Betty Wang with the last delivery on the extra end.
Muirhead’s rink – Vicki Adams, Lauren Gray and Anna Sloan – have lost just one of their first three games and will enjoy a rest day today before taking on in-form Korea.
“If you’d said at the start of the week I’d MUIRHEAD: Beat China have won two after three games then I’d have taken that,” said Muirhead, whose brother Thomas helped Britain’s men to a 6-5 win over Japan.
The curse of the men’s downhill remained intact as Austrian Matthias Mayer failed to retain the most famed crown in Alpine skiing. In 70 years of competition, no man has successfully defended the title, with Mayer finishing ninth.
The winner, Norwegian Aksel Lund Svindal, at 35, became the oldest Olympic champion in Alpine skiing.
France’s Perrine Laffont won the moguls aged 19 and USA’s Chloe Kim, just 17, became the youngest woman to win an Olympic snowboarding medal with her gold in the halfpipe.
Now the most junior member of Team GB is hoping to follow their lead in tomorrow’s freestyle skiing slopestyle and strike another blow for teen spirit.
Izzy Atkin, just 19, is the only member of the freestyle skiing squad who did not learn her trade inside Britain’s refrigerated ski domes.
She is the odd one the self-styled ‘Fridge but this is a sport standing out from the crowd is positively encouraged.
“I watched Chloe win that gold and it definitely was inspiring. Our sport does not really care about your age or your background, it just cares about what you do,” she said.
“Often the younger guys are the ones that are so hungry and really want to push it.
“I will be 23 at the next Olympics and there will be a whole load of new guys we have not heard of yet coming through by then. It keeps you working hard out in Kids’, where