Blair Atholl’s Eve Muirhead led the Scottish team to a successful defence of the world junior crown at the World Junior Championships in Ostersund, Sweden this March.

The 17 year old had been a member of Scotland’s winning 2007 team but returned as a skip this time, together with Highland’s Sarah McIntyre, Edinburgh’s Kerry Barr and Stranraer Adams sisters, Vicki and Kay.

Pummelling Sweden 12-3 in the final was particularly satisfying for the Scots who had been beaten twice by the host team in previous rounds.

“I’ve always been quite competitive and you wouldn’t like to get beaten for the third time by the same team, so we were out to win,” said Eve. 

“We had played so well all week that we knew if we could play the way we could play and keep on top of them from the start we’d be fine in the final.”

The vein of curling runs broad and deep in the Muirhead family. Her father Gordon was twice runner up in the World Championships and member of the British team that finished fifth in the 1992 Winter Olympics.  Elder brother, Glen (18) skipped his Scottish team in the recent World Junior Championships and was a member of the bronze winning team in the 2006 event. Father, son and daughter were Scottish Mixed Champions last year, qualifying them to compete in the European Mixed Championships in Madrid last year.

Meanwhile Eve’s younger brother, 12 year old Thomas, is also showing prodigious talent for the game. That leaves just her mother, who is taking to the game later in life, having been to several Come and Try sessions with her friends.  Eve doesn’t think she’ll be good enough to play in a combined Muirhead team, but as part of a family where curling is on the agenda non-stop just about anything is possible.

Eve’s own career began as a 10 year old on Pitlochry’s ice rink.  “Mum used to take us to watch Dad play when we were kids,” she said.  “It was our choice to play but we enjoy it and because it ran in my family it didn’t take that much to pick up.  It’s only the last few years where I’ve been training hard and going to the gym.”

It wasn’t long before her talents began to emerge.  As a 13 year old she skipped her team to the Scottish junior finals. Soon after she was invited to join the Tayside & Fife Institute of Sport.  During the next three years she went down the rink to gain experience in other positions, resurfacing as skip this season.

Eve has three more years in the junior ranks and would like to win the world junior title at least one more time.  Beyond that her goals are the Olympics and the ladies World Championships.

Few are more delighted with Eve’s success than Cate Brewster, the Scottish Institute of Sport’s Assistant Curling Coach.  “A talented player and a dream to work with, Eve has set her marks on where she wants to be but she had to have a team around her that could support her,” she said.

“She comes from a family where curling will be talked 24 hours a day but she is open to trying new things. She uses everything at the Scottish Institute from performance lifestyle, strength & conditioning to nutrition. Last year I changed her delivery and I wondered if it would have massive repercussions but it didn’t.  She become focused on changing it and has successfully adapted it.”

Scotland’s junior success also serves as an indication that Brewster’s Futures programme, created in 2006 to fast track young Scottish female players to world class level, has worked.

“We’d had a bit of a drought in juniors for a few years so we developed the Futures to fast track five girls into world class competition, to assist them to world class level and not being intimidated by it,” she said.

“It was about teaching them professionalism, taking care of the little things, controlling the controllables and it has definitely left its mark. Four of our five Futures athletes, Eve, Kay, Kerry and Sarah Reid from last year’s team, have now won the World Junior Championships.”

With the curling season taking its annual sabbatical in April and with no ice to practise on in Scotland until October, the summer does not represent downtime for Eve.  It’s more an opportunity for her to focus on that other traditional Highland sport, golf.

“I play at a high level and my handicap is 4,” she said.  “It’s been fine until now because I golf in the summer and curl in the winter but they’re starting to overlap a bit.

“I was meant to be in the Institute for golf as well for the last two years but I had to turn that down because the training camps were in the winter when I was always away curling.”

And there’s a third, lesser known side to Eve. She plays the pipes competitively, so well that, with the Pitlochry Pipe Band, she has finished as high as fourth in the World Championships. Again, she’s reached a point where something must go.

“I’m meant to be piping twice a week but I only manage once a week. It’s hard to fit it all in and I’ll have to give something up.”

For curling’s sake let’s hope she continues pursuing the Olympic dream. 

RE-J
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Eve is supported by the Scottish Institute of Sport.  View her profile by clicking here.