Eve Muirhead fails with winner-takes-all shot as GB women's curling team lose bronze-medal match against Japan

A teary Eve Muirhead admitted she was “devastated” at missing out on a second Olympic bronze medal after her gamble for glory with the final stone against Japan backfired.

Muirhead’s side were 4-3 down, but had a guaranteed point in the bag as the skip stepped up for the last shot of the 10th and final end.

Attempting to grab a second point to avoid sending the match to an extra end, Muirhead attacked with her final stone and only succeeding in nudging a Japanese stone closer to the button.

That sparked jubilant scenes from a Japanese side who secured their first ever curling medal, while Muirhead failed to match the bronze she won in Sochi four years ago.

“The shot was there for the game and as a skip you’re going to try to play that shot to win,” said Muirhead, insisting she would stick by her decision.

“Any other day I guarantee that shot would have come off. And for this week we’ve just been the wrong side of the inch.

“I’m absolutely gutted, I’m sad, I’m devastated. But believe you me, we’ll come back stronger.”

The match was an attritional affair with neither side managing to gain a foothold as single points flipped back and forth so often that the scorecard could have been mistaken for binary code.

Level after eight ends, the match effectively became a two-end shootout for bronze, which Japan claimed 5-3 after Muirhead boldly risked defeat in the hunt for victory.

Coach Glenn Howard said it was the correct call to make.

“110 per cent,” he said. “What I love is the fact we had a shot to win the game.

“Unfortunately Eve missed it. It wasn’t an easy shot but it was a makeable shot and it didn’t pull off. It didn’t work out for us.”