“I just called them Russia”

As expected, the World Curling Federation has adopted a new rule drafted earlier this week that permits the removal of a team or member association from one of its events. 

With the rule adoption, the WCF Board has approved the removal of the Russian Curling Federation entries from six world championships in 2022—men’s and women’s, mixed doubles and the new wheelchair mixed doubles, juniors and seniors. 

The news comes the same day Eve Muirhead, the newly crowned Olympic women’s champion skip, wrote about Russia in her weekly column for Scotland’s The Courier. 

“I should say—I’m sure that a very high percentage of competitors from (Russia and Belarus) are appalled by the war in Ukraine,” Muirhead wrote.

“And it will be the same in every sport.

“But the only thing that matters is what and who they represent—which is Vladimir Putin and his regime.

“From football to curling and everything in between, there needs to be a strong stand.

“Everyone knows how important sport is to Putin and this is our way of trying to make a difference.”

Muirhead went on to describe her experience competing against the ROC team skipped by Alina Kovaleva at Beijing. 

“The Russian curlers were at the Olympics under the ‘Russian Olympic Committee’ banner because of doping scandals but it didn’t make the slightest difference,” Muirhead wrote. “Whenever I was asked about our game against them I just called them ‘Russia’ and I’m sure that’s what everyone was thinking back home. 

“The first time it actually occurred to me that there was any difference at all was when I was at the closing ceremony and an anthem I didn’t recognize played. 

“But really, in the grand scheme of things, they were Russian athletes, representing Russia in every way. 

“And in the middle of an unprovoked war, that can’t be allowed to happen.” 

Following a whirlwind of appearances, news conferences and even a glamorous team photo shoot, Muirhead is delighted to return to the curling ice this week. 

“I’m writing this week’s column between games at the Scottish Mixed Doubles championship in Perth,” she penned.

“It is actually nice to get back to a bit of normality.

“Athletes in minority sports are used to getting on with regular events pretty quickly after an Olympics and there being a big drop-off in the level of outside interest.

“It is lovely to see people at Perth who have followed my career for years and hopefully we’ll get a few more than usual coming along to watch.

“Jen (Dodds) and Bruce (Mouat) will be the favourites to win because they’ve had a lot more practice at mixed over the last few months with doubling up at Beijing.

“And they are the current world champions.

“But myself and Bobbie (Lammie) ran them close for selection (to Beijing).

“I’ve never gone into a competition with anything other than the aim of winning it and I won’t be changing now!”