‘Cancelled events will spur me on’
Perthshire curler Eve Muirhead is using the cancellation of yet more major international events as fuel for 2021 motivation.
The European Championships, which was set to take place in Lillehammer in November, has been scrapped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This follows on from the World Championships being cancelled back in March, an event the Blair Atholl skip was also set to compete at.
Muirhead, who has returned to training at the national centre in Stirling along with other performance programme teams, admits the latest round of call-offs came as no surprise.
The two-time Europeans winner - the most recent in 2017 - expressed her disappointment at not being able to go for a third crown.
But there was also an understanding that safety remains the number one priority as sport attempts to return to some form of normality.
The lack of competitive action is fuelling her motivation for 2021.
“We’re not overly surprised, but seeing the cancellation in black and white does make it sink in,” Muirhead said of the Europeans being scrapped.
“We need to concentrate on the major events next year though and for now we will take every day and every week as it comes because there are so many unknowns.
“We’re very fortunate as a programme. British Curling has gone to great lengths to ensure we have this facility to train in, so we’re very lucky in that respect.
“The hard fact is that 2020 has just been a strange year and it’s not just us, but all 10 teams involved in the Europeans that have had to face this news which keeps it all in perspective.
“We just need to show how strong we are as athletes and things like this won’t put us off track for the future.”
The World Curling Federation, whose headquarters is in Perth, announced that a number of events had been cancelled.
World Curling Federation president Kate Caithness said: “We have been working tirelessly behind the scenes in an attempt to hold these events, however, the health and safety of our athletes, staff, volunteers and spectators will always remain our primary concern.”