Dumfries and Galloway curlers headed home with an impressive array of gold and silver medals to show for their heroic Olympic efforts.
Kirkgunzeon’s Grant Hardie and Stranraer duo Hammy McMillan and Bobby Lammie – along with alternate Ross Whyte – made up Bruce Mouat’s rink that won silver at the Winter Olympics in Beijing on Saturday.
And 24 hours later, Dumfries-born Vicky Wright went one better as she and the rest of Eve Muirhead’s rink defeated Japan to win gold in the women’s competition.
Team Mouat topped the round-robin group with a tremendous record of eight wins and just one defeat. That set up a semi-final against the USA with a tremendous 8-4 win putting them through to the final, securing Team GB their first medal of the games.
The encounter with Sweden proved a tight affair with the Scandinavians just edging it 5-4 after an extra end.
On Sunday it was the turn of Team Muirhead, featuring Stranraer’s Wright, to take centre stage. Their route out of the group wasn’t quite as smooth as a surprise loss to China left a record of four wins and four defeats.
But a win over the Russian Olympic Committee in their final game, along with wins for Sweden, Canada and Switzerland, put them through to the last four.
On Friday they defeated Sweden 12-11 after an extra end, setting up Sunday’s encounter with Japan.
Muirhead’s rink raced into a 4-1 lead at the break before Japan pulled one back in the sixth. However, four points in the seventh gave Team Muirhead a massive advantage. Japan could only respond with a single in the eighth and when GB scored another two in the ninth, the match was over as Britain took their first curling gold for 20 years.
