The team took home gold in the women’s curling event on Sunday (20 February) after a 10-4 victory against Japan.
Less than 24 hours after Team GB celebrated its first medal win of the Beijing Winter Olympics with the men’s curling team taking home silver, the women’s curling team has claimed Team GB’s second medal – and this time, it was gold.
The team, Milli Smith, Hailey Duff, Jennifer Dodds, Vicky Wright and skip Eve Muirhead, took to the ice against Japan in the early hours of Sunday morning (the last day of the games) and came away with a 10-4 victory.
However, besides being a remarkable achievement, the gold medal performance also represented a huge comeback for the team, who have faced a number of hurdles on their journey to and during these Olympics – and taught us all a lesson in resilience in the process.
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Indeed, not only did they initially struggle to qualify for the games and have to deal with a Covid-19 dilemma before their final qualifying tournament in December, but they’ve had to fight their way through a number of matches in their journey to the final.
“It’s definitely been a rollercoaster journey for the whole team,” Muirhead told The Guardian after the team’s victory. “For me it was a very tough summer with the pandemic, with lockdown, with not initially qualifying for the Olympics. There were days when I just wanted to throw my shoes in the cupboard and not take them out again.”
She continued: “But we all came back, we had this new team put together, we then won the Europeans and then the Olympic qualifying tournament. There have been ups and downs, there has been a couple of positive tests, but here we are, five very healthy girls with gold medals round their necks.”
While there’s been a sense of disappointment surrounding the lack of Team GB medals at these games, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been plenty of notable achievements.
Indeed, alongside some history-making moments from the likes of Makayla Gerken Schofield and Montell Douglas, both the men’s and women’s curling teams have overcome adversity to take home medals – and that’s something we can all celebrate.
Image: Getty
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