Eve Muirhead taking coronary heart from ‘robust occasions’ forward of fourth Winter Olympics

Eve Muirhead believes her gruelling path to a fourth Winter Olympics might show a “blessing in disguise” as she prepares to guide the Nice Britain curling crew in quest of the one main title that also eludes her.

The 31-year-old’s squad fought by way of this month’s last-chance qualifying occasion regardless of dropping two of their first three Video games, and having confronted the very actual prospect of failing to ship a British girls’s crew for the primary time.

It was a far cry from the dominant type that has seen Muirhead set up herself as one of the adorned curlers within the recreation, with Olympic bronze, a world title and three European golds – together with an unbeaten run to gold in Lillehammer earlier this 12 months – within the bag.

However Muirhead maintained: “I consider it was a blessing in disguise for us. It provides me numerous confidence to know that as a crew we are able to battle by way of the robust occasions and are available out of them on the different finish.”

The skilled Muirhead will skip a crew comprising 4 debutants – Jennifer Dodds, who has already been chosen for the blended doubles occasion alongside Bruce Mouat, Vicky Wright, Hailey Duff and alternate Mili Smith.

And Muirhead admitted her long-held perception that it’s her future to in the future emulate her former coach Rhona Martin and declare her sport’s largest prize took successful after an eighth-placed end on the World Championships in Could, which served to wreck her hopes of direct qualification.

She stated: “If you happen to look again to the World Championships in Calgary, that might be the one time that I possibly did query myself, the time I realised the Olympics in Beijing had been a good distance away from me.

“However I by no means gave up and I feel it took numerous drive and resilience to focus in the summertime on making myself higher, and all of the laborious work has paid off.”

Muirhead responded in fashion, charting an unbeaten course to the European title in Lillehammer earlier than shrugging off a dismal begin within the do-or-die decider in Holland together with a shock early loss to event lightweights Turkey.

Her crew’s subsequent five-match successful streak in the end secured a fourth Video games slot for Muirhead, who made her Olympic debut in Vancouver 2010 and received bronze 4 years later in Sochi one 12 months after being topped her sport’s youngest world title-winning skip.

In Pyeongchang in 2018, Muirhead led her crew to the semi-finals however successive defeats to Sweden and Japan denied her the chance of claiming a second successive Olympic medal.

“It’s been a really totally different build-up to those Olympics and I do assume this must be one in every of my largest private achievements,” added Muirhead. “This one is additional particular when it comes to going to the Video games with 4 women who’ve by no means competed in an Olympic Video games earlier than.”