Eve plays it again for the bronze
THERE has been a feeling of deja vu about these Winter Games.
Skeleton remains Britain’s undisputed national winter sport and the words heartache, Olympics and Elise Christie invariably go together.
And then there is Eve Muirhead, falling one win short of the Olympic final. Again.
Christie left these Games – as she did in 2014 – without a medal after a crash and two disqualifications, while Muirhead’s rink was out-thought and outclassed by Swedish skip Anna Hasselborg yesterday as they surrendered tamely in a game they rarely contested, losing 10-5.
There were tears after their semi-final loss four years ago in Sochi – Muirhead still calls it the toughest moment of her career – but they turned it around to win bronze less than 24 hours later. Now she must do the same again with Japan waiting in today’s third-place play-off.
It is a must-win match on so many levels for Muirhead, Vicki Adams, Lauren Gray and Anna Sloan personally, and for the team if they hope to achieve the target five medals set for them by UK Sport here.
“I don’t think it can harm us what we went through four years ago. We went through a semi-final loss and we came back strong to get the bronze medal,” said Muirhead.
“As a team, we know exactly what we did. From four years ago we learnt a lot so we’re going to come out very strong and hopefully play well for that bronze. As the skip I am gutted I missed a few shots out there but it happens, it’s sport.
“Japan lost a world final a couple of years ago so it’s going to be a tough game, but we’ll come out strong. I’ve never said that I’m coming just for the gold.
“I’ve trained the last four years to come to an Olympics and a medal was the target. Of course we came up short, but we came up short against a strong Swedish team.”
Bronze medal matches are the hardest to play, both teams coming in downbeat with confidence flagging.
Unlike four years ago there were no tears from Muirhead yesterday, perhaps because this was a match they were always chasing. Muirhead’s fate hinged on a pivotal seventh end in which it first appeared that Britain, trailing 5-3 at the time but with the all-important hammer, would benefit from an uncharacteristic mistake from Swedish skip Anna Hasselborg. But Muirhead’s bid to draw her final stone to set up at least a two back-fired spectacularly when she clipped one of her own guards, setting up the Swedes to steal a three and with it effectively the match.
Sloan admitted the Swedes were the better team in the handful of pressure moments in the three-hour match but, like her skip, was determined to accentuate the positive.
“We know what it takes to lose a semi-final and win a bronze medal match,” she said.
In contrast, Japan’s skip Satsuki Fujisawa, who lost to Muirhead in the round-robin stages, looked bereft after a final-end 8-7 loss to the Korean team led by Kim Eun-Jung, whose glare and funky glasses have become the subject of endless internet attention.
Known as the ‘Garlic Girls’, the Korean team have become the rock stars of these Winter Games, a humble group of friends from the same rural town who have switched off their phones to block outside attention.
The Koreans have claimed the scalps of Canada, Switzerland, Russia, Great Britain and Sweden in recent days. Not bad for a team ranked eighth in the world.
CAN EVE Muirhead win Britain’s fifth medal? Watch her curling bronze medal match live on Eurosport 2 from 11am today. Don’t miss a moment of the Winter Games at eurosport.co.uk and on the Eurosport app.
It’s going to be tough but we’ll come out strong