Nicola Sturgeon has hailed the Team GB women's curling team after they won Olympic gold following a sensational final performance in Beijing.
The First Minister praised Eve Muirhead and her Scottish teammates after they saw off Japan to win Britain's first curling top prize at a winter games in 20 years.
The Team GB captain had lost two Olympic semi-finals in the past but emerged victorious after a thrilling match that took place in the early hours of this morning.
The SNP leader tweeted: "Such an amazing achievement @Team_Muirhead #TeamGB - congratulations on Olympic gold".
Scots Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said: "This such great news to wake up to. Congratulations @evemuirhead and @TeamGB".
Muirhead required no extra ends nor ‘Stone of Destiny’ dramas as she fulfilled an overdue ambition by sweeping Great Britain’s women’s curling team to Olympic gold at the Ice Cube in Beijing on Sunday.
Twenty years after Rhona Martin slid her final stone down the Ogden Ice Sheet in Salt Lake City, Muirhead and her team-mates Vicky Wright, Jennifer Dodds, Hailey Duff and alternate Mili Smith swept to an emphatic 10-3 win over Japan.
The comprehensive nature of Muirhead’s victory belied a remarkable battle against adversity her team had endured since they initially failed to qualify for the Olympics at last year’s World Championships in Calgary.
A pair of positive Covid tests prior to the final qualifiers almost derailed the team’s preparations, and their stuttering progress through the round-robin phase in Beijing left them on the brink of elimination.
But three days after they were forced to rely on two other results and a mere 10cm advantage via the average accuracy of the pre-match draw shot challenge simply to stay alive in the tournament, and two after beating the odds from a four-point first end deficit against Sweden, Muirhead led her team to the easiest of victories with an end to spare.
“This is a moment I dreamed of as a young child,” said an emotional Muirhead afterwards. “Having lost two semi-finals then come through that great battle against Sweden, we knew this was an opportunity we might never get again.
“It has definitely been a rollercoaster journey for the whole team. From not finishing the top six at the world championships, we had to come back and it was hard.
“There were times I wanted to throw my shoes in the cupboard and never get them out again. But we all came back and got this new team together and came through the Europeans and the qualifiers.
“There have been ups and downs, there have been a couple of positive tests, but here we are, five very healthy girls with gold medals around our necks.”
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