{"id":781782,"date":"2026-02-22T15:28:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T15:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/781782\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T15:28:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T15:28:13","slug":"eve-muirhead-in-pole-position-to-lead-britains-olympic-team-in-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/781782\/","title":{"rendered":"Eve Muirhead in pole position to lead Britain\u2019s Olympic team in Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

By James Toney in Cortina<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scot Eve Muirhead is in pole position to lead Britain\u2019s Olympic team again in Los Angeles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Olympic curling champion Muirhead has won rave reviews for her chef de mission role in Milano Cortina, guiding Team GB to their most successful ever performance at a Winter Games.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Five medals met UK Sport\u2019s medal target, and three golds were two more than Britain had ever won at a single Winter Games in the previous 24 editions.<\/p>\n

Then there were the near misses, including five fourth-place finishes and a record 24 top-10 finishes.<\/p>\n

Muirhead, 35, is the youngest person to lead a British team at the Games and has thrown herself into the dizzying logistics of the role, made more complicated by the wide geographical spread of venues.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Those who wondered whether she was too young to take on the challenge have quickly reassessed that view, with Muirhead clearly determined to be more than just a name above the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve loved this role,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m focused on finishing what we\u2019re doing here and making sure we reflect properly on what\u2019s worked and what we can improve. I haven\u2019t thought beyond that yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is our most successful Winter Games ever \u2014 both in total medals and number of Olympic champions. We\u2019re proud of what\u2019s been achieved \u2014 and excited by the talent coming through for the next cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Mark England guided Team GB at the Rio, Tokyo and Paris Games but stepped down in December, having overseen the most successful period in British Olympic history. Leading a team to a Summer Games is significantly more challenging, but Muirhead has proven her credentials here.<\/p>\n

\u201cEve has been an incredible chef de mission,\u201d said UK Sport\u2019s performance director, Kate Baker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no right way of doing the role. It\u2019s complex, it doesn\u2019t sleep, and you must deliver during an intense two-week period. Eve is not a figurehead; she has run the show and I\u2019m in awe of that. That\u2019s even more incredible considering she was an Olympic athlete just four years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

British Olympic officials are right to take a victory lap, with UK Sport delighted with the return on investment of \u00a325m of government and National Lottery money.<\/p>\n

But there is room for improvement ahead of 2030. Australia finished ahead of Great Britain on the medal table with six medals and the Netherlands, who brought 15 less athletes to the Games than Team GB, were rewarded with their targeted investment in two sports with 20 medals, including ten gold.<\/p>\n

TNT Sports on <\/strong>discovery+<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0will be the go-to destination in the UK to watch everything of Milano Cortina 2026 live all in one place, with over 850 hours of action from every sport, venue, and medal event.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By James Toney in Cortina Scot Eve Muirhead is in pole position to lead Britain\u2019s Olympic team again…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,117758,393,228048,4884,228049,1144,227348,108424,712,9722,16,209372,15,1764,222776],"class_list":["post-781782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","category-uk","category-united-kingdom","tag-britain","tag-british-team","tag-england","tag-eve-muirhead","tag-great-britain","tag-milano-cortina","tag-northern-ireland","tag-olympic-curling","tag-olympic-team","tag-scotland","tag-team-gb","tag-uk","tag-uk-sport","tag-united-kingdom","tag-wales","tag-winter-games"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116114994454823458","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}