THEY are fickle these curling Gods. Eve Muirhead was left looking to the heavens and cursing them while David Murdoch collapsed to his knees and praised them for all he was worth.

Over six hours of almost unbearable incremental tension, Great Britain’s curling rinks suffered contrasting fortunes in the semi-finals in Sochi yesterday.

Muirhead blamed a hair for decisively kicking her stone off track and handing the advantage to rival Canadian skip Jennifer Jones, meaning she will play for Olympic bronze today.

However, Murdoch got all her luck, as his Swedish semifinal opponent made a late error, which he gleefully seized on to book a place in tomorrow’s curling final.

For a few brief hours this sport held the nations’ rapt attention yesterday, proving that even a game played in perpetual slow motion can be utterly gripping.

Murdoch will now play Canadian rival Brad Jacobs - a player who wrote him off as defensive before the Games – for Olympic gold tomorrow in a final to savour.

It’s a deserved reward for a player who has suffered his fair share of Olympic disappointment, missing out on bronze by millimetres in Turin and crashing out in the extra end of a tiebreaker four years ago in Vancouver, where he’d arrived as world champion.

“I hope it’s our time,” he said, praising the performance of his youthful rink of Olympic newcomers Greg Drummond, Scott Andrews and Michael Goodfellow.

“The curling Gods have been looking down on me this week and it makes a change. We have to go out there with confidence and no fear, go for it and believe it.

“That’s a reward for 12 years of dedicating yourself to a sport, to beat your body up, go through injuries and train hard and make sacrifices.

After all that time I’ve proved it pays off.

“Having the experience of the near misses in Turin and Vancouver has helped me keep my head and settle my play. This team believes in itself, I can’t believe the confidence we have and now we’re in the Olympic final.

“I want the gold, you get this opportunity once in a lifetime and it’s up to us to seize the day and make some incredible history. I’m delighted getting the medal I’ve worked so long for but we want the gold now and we’ll be pushing everything to get that.”

Murdoch admitted he nearly quit the sport after the disappointment of Vancouver, he found himself on the fringes of the team, wondering whether his moment had gone.

Whether destiny is on his side remains to be seen.

“After Vancouver I thought that was it and I’d never get back,” he admitted. “You don’t get the chances to get to the Olympics very often.

“I went off the boil and my head wasn’t in it because I thought Vancouver was my chance. Then I got a bad shoulder injury and I honestly thought that was me done.

“But credit to my coach Soren Gran, he changed the course of my life and I moved to Stirling to train full-time and I’ve practiced harder than I’ve ever done in my life. He’s pushed me right to edge.”

In contrast, Muirhead, alongside Adams, Anna Sloan and Claire Hamilton, will have to pick themselves up for today’s bronze medal match, which if they win would make this Great Britain’s most successful ever Winter Olympics.”

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