Neither the Scottish men or women travelled home from the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships in Stavanger with gold medals, but both skips Eve Muirhead and David Murdoch insisted that this event had been a positive step in their Olympic build-ups.
After going through the whole event undefeated, Muirhead’s women picked Saturday morning’s final against Sweden to play their slackest game of the week, eventually going down by 5-10.
Reflecting on her team’s overall performance, Muirhead said, “I think you’ve got to look at this week as being really, really good.
“If you looked at our stats and our performance, you’d see one of the best teams in the world right now. We lost the final, but if you look at the games before the final we really are a team to be reckoned with.”
She added: “Give Sweden their dues, they played well. But that was pretty sore. We just didn’t seem to be as sharp as we had been for the rest of the week.”
The obvious major target for Muirhead and Murdoch this season is the Sochi Winter Olympic Games, which start in just over two months.
Muirhead added: “The Europeans wasn’t the big one for us this season our preparation is for Sochi. It would have been nice to come away with the gold medal, but we’ve had such a great week.
“The girls played great all week and I think we’re in a really, really good place”.
Having gone to the previous two Winter Games as a real medal prospect, only to come away from both empty-handed, Murdoch is targeting Sochi too.
He said: “For me, the Olympic Games mean more than most people will ever know.
“You train 12 years of your life and you still don’t achieve the one thing you really want. That one thing I’ve wanted so much is still eluding me it’ll be worth the wait.”
He also thinks his team is going well enough to help him with his dream.
He said: “This team’s getting better all the time. I’m very optimistic about the way this team is going. We’re on the up and that’s a good sign.”
For Murdoch’s men, the damage had been done earlier in the week when they lost their Page Play-off game on the last stone by 5-6 to Denmark.
This meant they had to play for bronze medals on Saturday, against Denmark again.
The Scots took the lead in the fifth when Danish skip Rasmus Stjerne wrecked his last stone, leaving Murdoch with a simple draw to score three points for a 4-3 lead.
The game came down to the 10th end and when Stjerne was heavy with his final draw leaving two Scottish counters in the house, Scotland won without Murdoch having to play his last stone.
Later Switzerland beat Norway by 8-6 to take the men’s gold.
Murdoch said: “We know what the real goal is this season and this week was all about working hard as a team, having some good performances and playing well and I think we’ve done that.
“We’ve not got a gold medal but we’ve shown what we’re capable of. It’s all about keeping that good form now and training hard and keeping things going.”