They may not have managed the title win they were aiming for but the re-shaped Team Muirhead achieved their principal objective at Braehead at the weekend and for their new-ish girl the bronze medal she collected was a particularly significant prize.
Lauren Gray already owns an Olympic medal and a World Championship gold, both collected when on duty with Muirhead’s rink, but then she was their alternate (non-playing reserve) so while team-mates Eve Muirhead, Anna Sloan and Vicki Adams now have a combined haul of 20 European Championship medals, accrued over the past seven years, this was the first she has played her way to.
“It’s a totally different experience when you’re out on the ice,” she observed.
“I think everyone forgets I’ve not been out on the ice before, so for it to be on home soil with a lot of friends and family who haven’t seen me curl before coming to watch made it a really special event. It was a shame with only one loss to come away with bronze but we’re genuinely delighted to get a medal.
“I’ve got a few junior medals when I was playing, but all my ladies medals have been as the fifth so from my personal point of view it’s definitely a huge milestone in my career.”
She has coped impressively with both a change of playing position, having been skip of the rink beaten by her new team-mates in this year’s Scottish Championship final before being asked to join them this summer and i her first on ice performance at a senior championships.
The Scots lost just a single match during the competition and while it was in the worst possible match, a semi-final against a Russian rink they had comfortably beaten the previous day, she is satisfied with the obvious progress being made.
“Being on the bench you’re part of the team and involved in the preparation and all the post-game stuff, but I’ve had to do a lot of work to learn the new style for my new role as lead and a lot of fitness work for my sweeping while we’ve had a to do a lot of dynamics work to integrate me into the team as well, so we’ve worked hard over the summer, but we’ve definitely had a successful season so far which we’ve been pleased with,” said Gray.
“We came into this looking for medals building towards the Scottish Championship and hopefully the World Championship and we feel like we’re on track.
“The experience we’ve had bouncing back from that disappointment has brought us closer together as a team so hopefully going forward it’s a good stepping stone. One good experience we could draw on was that in Sochi (at the last Winter Olympics) when I was there we had a similar experience when we lost a semi-final, so it was a similar sort of discussion to that, letting out frustrations, putting it to bed and coming back on as if it never happened.
“It was vital to take the opportunity to get onto that podium. We all wanted to do it for each other and show that we are up there.”
Victoria Maseeva’s rink went on to keep the title in Russia, following up on the success of compatriots Team Sidorova in a demonstration of the growing strength in depth of curling in their country as they stole a two at the final end of a tense final against Anna Hasselborg’s Swedes to claim a 6-4 win.
There was a better outcome for Sweden in an even harder fought men’s final between former world champions, Team Edin hold onto their title after an extra end to matching the record of three consecutive wins set by Scotland’s Hammy McMillan 20 years ago as they defeated Norway’s Team Ulsrud whose silver was their 10th medal in succession at the event.
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