Great Britain’s Eve Muirhead captured the Olympic gold medal in women’s curling with a 10-3 rout over Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa during Sunday’s final in Beijing.
Muirhead, who was the youngest world championship-winning skip in 2013 at age 22, earned bronze at the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014 and coincidentally lost to Fujisawa in the bronze medal game four years ago in Pyeongchang.
The four-time Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling women’s champion Muirhead opened with the hammer and converted for a deuce in the first frame. Muirhead was already ahead 4-2 in the seventh end and a score of four points put the game out of reach.
Fujisawa was forced to her third single of the match in the eighth and Muirhead tacked two more points on the board in the ninth.
Both teams finished round-robin play with identical 5-4 records and were locked in a three-way tie with Canada’s Jennifer Jones for the final two playoff spots. Since head-to-head records were also even at 1-1 each, Muirhead and Fujisawa advanced based on average draw-to-the-button shootout scores while Canada was eliminated.
Great Britain fended off Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg 12-11 in an extra end and Japan stunned two-time reigning world champion Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland 8-6 during the semifinals. Hasselborg, who won Olympic gold in Pyeongchang, topped Tirinzoni 9-7 for bronze on Saturday.
Sweden’s Niklas Edin beat Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat 5-4 in an extra end Saturday during the men’s gold medal game while Canada’s Brad Gushue defeated John Shuster of the United States 8-5 for bronze.
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