One of the side-benefits of Scotland's historic victory in Sunday's final of the Titlis Glacier Mountain World Women's Championship was that, almost unnoticed, Eve Muirhead's team gathered enough qualification points to guarantee Great Britain a place in the line-up at the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia, next February.
Ten places are available for both men's and women's rinks in the Olympic competition, including hosts Russia. The World Curling Federation have decided that the top seven nations, from performances in last year's and this year's worlds, would qualify, and Muirhead's gold medal performance means that Scotland – they gather points on Great Britain's behalf – were third on that table.
Sweden and Switzerland are ahead of Scotland/Great Britain, with the other direct qualifiers being Canada, USA, Denmark and Korea. Seven other countries are eligible to enter a final qualification event for the last two places, to be staged in December.
Eve Muirhead and her team – third Anna Sloan, second Vicki Adams and lead Claire Hamilton – have yet to be formally selected for Olympic representation, but their gold medals must surely make the process a formality.
They also moved Scotland up to fourth place in the women's WCF rankings, behind Sweden, Canada and Switzerland. It is the highest position Scotland have reached on this table.
"I'd like to think we're 99.99% sure of selection for the Olympics," said Muirhead after the team's arrival at Edinburgh Airport yesterday. "Going into the Games as world champions; that's a good thing. We'll definitely be sucking up the atmosphere."
Reflecting on their win, she added: "World champions? It sounds phenomenal. We've worked so hard all season. We've actually had a great, great season. We came in here after a silver at the Europeans and you don't want to come away with anything but the gold medal when you go in on form. All of us have had a great week and to come out as world champions is just amazing."
"We've got big things ahead of us and all these major championships are definitely stepping stones towards the Olympics; that's my big goal.
"My team have been fantastic. We've all stuck together. What makes it so different is that we're all best friends as well. You win a world championship with your best friends; it makes you feel even better."
The final was tense all the way, with never more than one point between the teams. It came down to not making a mistake in the last end, as Muirhead recalled. "I knew that if I was left a shot I felt good about, I was confident I was going to make it; my draw weight was pretty spot-on throughout the game.
"I would have been happy with a four-foot draw, but the girls played a great last end. Anna made a superb double rip that kept it wide open for me. Sweden's last stone actually finished up pretty good for me because I just couldn't peel it away with my last".
Muirhead's mother Lynn and father Gordon, himself a double world silver medallist, were in the audience. "I didn't even look over at my parents in the last end," she said. "I could imagine their hearts were going a little bit fast. I'm sure they were more nervous than I was, because I was pretty calm out there."
Muirhead and her team will need that calmness in 11 months' time when there are Olympic medals on the line.
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