European Curling Championships: Eve Muirhead's Scotland defeated in final

Muirhead's rink slipped to a 5-4 defeat by Sweden

Eve Muirhead's Scotland have been defeated 5-4 by Sweden in the final of the European Curling Championships.

Skip Anna Hasselborg clinched victory with the final stone of the match for the reigning champions.

In what was a tight contest, the Scots, who knocked out world champion Silvana Tirinzoni's Switzerland in the semi-finals, went into the final end with a slender one-point lead.

However, Hasselborg's fine shot at the death secured gold in Helsingborg.

• Paterson leads Scots to bronze

"It was tough to take," Muirhead said afterwards. "I'll give Anna her dues, what a fantastic shot to win the championships.

"We knew it would come down to the last shot in the last end and it came down to a couple of inches really. But that's curling."

Muirhead was chasing her first gold medal since the 2017 European Championships, having spent time recovering from hip surgery which she underwent in 2018.

Instead though, Scotland pick up silver, which is a first medal for Jennifer Dodds and Vicky Wright as part of the team following the departure of Muirhead's long-term teammates Anna Sloan and Vicki Chalmers.

It is back-to-back titles for Sweden, who had swept aside Scotland 11-4 in the round-robin element of the competition.

They kept their nerve in a gripping contest in which only two ends- the fourth and, crucially, the last- had more than one point scored.

"I've got a lot of silvers at Europeans and unfortunately that's added another to the collection but we've got a lot we can take from this week," Muirhead added.

"We've showed we can still win, we can still win medals. Right now it's team Hasselborg's moment. They played well throughout these championships and well done to them."