EVE MUIRHEAD WINS OLYMPIC GOLD IN BEIJING

Huge congratulations to past P&K Ladies' County champion & team member Eve Muirhead who led her GB team to Olympic curling gold this morning.

Perthshire born Eve Muirhead, who turned down offers of golf scholarships in the USA to follow her curling career, realised her Olympic dream today.

Alongside fellow Scots Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds, Hailey Duff and alternate Mili Smith, the 31 year old skip won Team GB's only gold medal of the Winter Olympics.

For Eve it was fourth-time lucky (all as skip) after failing to progress from the group stages at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, winning bronze at Sochi in 2014 and suffering a heatbreaking loss to Japan in the bronze-medal match at Pyeongchang in 2018.

Twenty years after she watched Rhona Martin (now Howie) send down her "Stone of Destiny" at the Salt Lake City Games to win gold, Muirhead finally managed to emulate her fellow Scot's success.

Like Martin, Muirhead finished 5-4 after the round-robin matches and had to rely on the results of others to squeeze into the knockout stage. But, this time there was no dramatic last stone drama for the gold. Instead, after a semi-final roller-coaster against Sweden, which GB came through to win 12-11 at the 1st extra end, Eve and her team dominated the final, wrapping up a superb 10-3 victory over Japan with an end to spare.

After her win, Eve Muirhead said:

"To think it was 20 years ago when Rhona Martin made history in Britain by winning that gold medal. We’ve followed in her footsteps and done it. This is a moment I’ve dreamed of as a child. To stand on the podium and get that gold medal around your neck is honestly a moment I’ll never forget."