Bouncing back from Beijing
by Michael Weadock, April 2023
This week we’ve had the pleasure of a catch up with Eve Muirhead. Eve was the skip of Team GB’s gold medal winning curling team at the last Winter Olympics in Beijing. It was the only gold medal won in China by a team who travelled with high ambitions and plenty of expectation. Eve has now retired from competitive curling, but is keeping busy by taking on the Chef de Mission role for the Winter Youth Games and also by running the London marathon for The Doddie Weir Foundation.
But, inevitably our chat soon turned to her colleagues who compete on snow and ice. And, despite the disappointments in China, this season has been phenomenal. Scotland’s Men became World Curling Champions by stunning Canada in the final. It had been fourteen years since Scotland had last won the title and they secured victory in Ottawa with a comprehensive 9-3 victory over the hosts. It is the perfect platform for Team Mouat to launch their bid for the elusive Olympic Gold in 2026. And, it is not an isolated winter sports success. Athletes from Great Britain and Northern Ireland have had a phenomenal season. In snow and ice sports this season, athletes have won almost 80 medals at World Championships or World Cup events.
For GB Snowsport, they had an athlete on the podium in every World Cup discipline they compete in. Highlights included Mia Brookes becoming the youngest world champion in snowboarding history and overall victory in the Snowboard Cross World Cup for Charlotte Bankes. Elsewhere, Brad Hall has piloted GB’s four man bobsleigh team to three World Cup gold medals this season and a silver medal in the World Championships. It was Britain’s first four man bobsleigh World Championship medal for 84 years. They had finished 6 th at the last Olympics. British Skeleton failed to win a medal at the Olympic Games for the first time since 2002 and saw their funding cut. But, Matt Weston who finished 15 th in Beijing has finished this year as World Champion with his teammate Marcus Wyatt winning bronze. There was also a world bronze medal for Cornelius Kersten in long track speed skating and a European silver medal and number one world ranking for figure skaters Lewis Gibson and Lilah Fear.
Maybe we underestimated the impact of the pandemic on our winter sports stars and put too much pressure and expectation on them to win more medals that they did in Beijing. But, if this season has been anything to go by, Team GB might just need to put the champagne on ice in Milan-Cortina in 2026.
To hear from Olympic Champion Curler Eve Muirhead, listen to our London Marathon Special edition of the Anything but Footy podcast here:
