What a privilege to tell the story of Great Britain’s curling win

Curling isn’t the first sport you’d pick to captivate the nation, but every Olympic cycle, we all tune in to watch the drama unfold, writes Ben Burrows

‘It is a dream come true for myself, and for the rest of the girls,’ Eve Muirhead said afterwards (PA Wire)

After always doing things the hard way, Eve Muirhead’s first Olympic gold came remarkably easily. Four years on from falling at the final hurdle to miss out on bronze in Pyeongchang, there was no mistake as Great Britain’s women’s curling skip led her team to a first Olympic title since 2002.

Twenty years after Rhona Howie’s famous “Stone of Destiny”, Muirhead’s feat was much more straightforward as her side started the strongest in Sunday’s final and powered away to the finish line, emerging 10-3 victors over Japan in Beijing.

Muirhead, who was the youngest skip to win a curling world title back in 2013, had only a bronze medal from 2014 to show from three trips to the Olympics before this one. But after seeing off defending champions Sweden in a rollercoaster semi-final on Friday, hopes were high that she and the team of Vicky Wright, Jennifer Dodds and Hailey Duff would finally break their golden duck this time around.

They very nearly didn’t make it into the knockout rounds at all, after needing a win over the Russian Olympic Committee and a pair of other results to go their way at the end of the round-robin to squeeze through to the last four. But the final took as serene a path as one of Muirhead’s perfectly placed stones slid down the ice with a superbly executed take-out in the seventh end proving the decisive blow in the joint-biggest winning margin in a final since the sport was reintroduced in 1998.

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“It is a dream come true for myself, and for the rest of the girls,” Muirhead said before the emotion of the moment finally told with tears on the medal podium. “The journey to get here, I think it shows how strong we are. We have so many people to thank. It is something we’ll never forget and we’re going to enjoy the next few hours.”

Curling isn’t the first sport you’d pick to captivate the nation, but every Olympic cycle, more than a million can tune in in the small hours to watch the drama unfold. From shots to corner guards and buttons to hammers, curling isn’t the easiest of sports to cover as a journalist either, but any story like Muirhead’s, especially one that finally gets the ending it has long promised, is always a privilege to tell. See you again for more of the same in four years’ time.

Yours,

Ben Burrows

Sports editor