Eve Muirhead: Olympic curling champion fighting to keep rinks open

Eve Muirhead, right, claimed Olympic gold at the fourth time of asking when she led Great Britain women to glory in Beijing last year

Olympic champion Eve Muirhead has vowed to fight for the future of Scottish curling and called for government assistance to help "save" the sport.

Ayr last month closed its doors and Scottish Curling says the country's remaining 21 rinks are facing "unprecedented challenges" amid spiralling inflation and energy costs.

Muirhead, Scotland's most decorated curler, retired last summer.

"It's a hard time for curling and really scary," she told BBC Scotland.

"But I want to stay quite positive about it as well because I do believe we can continue to fight to save these rinks.

"The number one problem is energy costs and it's not just ice rinks, everybody is really struggling just now financially. And the cost of an ice rink is not cheap.

"We've got to look at the bigger picture and try to get more money into that side of sport. That's when you look at the government for some help as well. Sport should be put quite far to the front of the agenda, not just on the backburner.

"I get that there's a lot of things out there that are probably more important, but sport is very good for a lot of different things, whether it's mental health, physical health, getting children active. That's one part that I'm very passionate about.

"And of course to get more curlers in Scotland, even in Great Britain, we need ice rinks to do that. We need to get people through the door but we can't do any of that without facilities."

Scottish Curling has created a working group to explore options to support rinks under threat of closure.

Muirhead, 33, led Great Britain women's team to gold at the Winter Olympics in Beijing last year, the culmination of a career that also yielded a World Championship and three European titles amid a glut of honours.

She says retirement gives her a different perspective on the economic pressure facing her beloved sport.

"For ourselves winning the Olympic gold medal, alongside the boys as well winning silver, we would have loved to have left a bit of a legacy to help get more people involved in the sport. The last thing we want is for rinks to be closing their doors," Muirhead added.

"Now not being a competitive athlete, I'm on the other side so can probably see a lot more angles that I didn't see when I was competing.

"It gives me even more of a sense to fight to save the sport, because when you're an athlete you take it for granted.

"I know Scottish Curling are working very hard to keep these rinks open. Same with us athletes as curlers and same with the general public - you're not just looking at curling, you're looking at ice skating, ice hockey, a lot of these venues are used in summer as well for different events.

"So I think we've all got to come together as a group and fight as hard as we can to save our sport of curling. Having grown up within the sport, and knowing how important it is to Scotland and to quite a lot of people within Britain, it's essential that we save it.