TEAM MUIRHEAD defeated Switzerland in the semi-finals of the European Curling Championships, which are taking place in Helsingborg, Sweden, to ensure they will play for gold today.
Switzerland are reigning world and European champions and this semi-final was tense the entire way, with the Scots finally emerging as 3-2 winner. Muirhead and her rink needed an extra end to clinch the victory though, with Muirhead herself playing the final stone that secured the point they needed for the win.
In today’s final, Muirhead and her team of Lauren Gray as vice-skip, Jennifer Dodds, Victoria Wright and alternate, Sophie Sinclair, will face the current Olympic champions, who will have the home support behind them
The Scottish team played Sweden earlier in the week, with the hosts coming out on top with an 11-4 win. However, if Team Muirhead can replicate their form from their semi-final, they have every chance of overturning that result in the final, which is a replay of the 2017 final, in which Muirhead came out on top.
Muirhead’s experience is likely to play a major part, with the 29-year-old a veteran of European Championship finals. Muirhead, who underwent a serious hip operation last year to rectify a problem that meant she was in constant pain, has contested six European finals, winning gold twice, silver four times and picking up two bronzes as well.
Meanwhile, Scot Stuart Benson picked up his Winter Olympic bobsled bronze medal from the 2014 Games on Thursday evening. Benson was part of the four-man crew that finished fifth at the Sochi Games behind two Russian crews, who were later disqualified for doping. The others in the GB crew were John Jackson, Bruce Tasker and Joel Fearon and the quartet received their medals at the Team GB Ball in London.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here