After an initial flurry of VANOC bashing, coverage of the Games by British media has dwindled, along with the performances of the country's athletes. So far, the Brits have one solitary medal: Amy Williams won the women's skeleton, the country's first individual gold medal at a Winter Olympics.
After an initial flurry of VANOC bashing, coverage of the Games by British media has dwindled, along with the performances of the country's athletes. So far, the Brits have one solitary medal: Amy Williams won the women's skeleton, the country's first individual gold medal at a Winter Olympics.
As we know, Brits don't do snow.
Reports on the latest disaster -- the lacklustre showing by British women curlers -- were relegated to the Siberia of the sports pages or ignored.
"A union flag draped over the side of the ice sheet bore the message 'Eve Muirhead ice queen,' but as far as the Vancouver Olympics go, the queen is dead.
The 19 year-old curling skip, who had promised so much when she opened her campaign with a victory over the Chinese world champions, was eliminated from the competition on Tuesday as she and her GB team-mates were defeated 6-5 by Canada in their final game.
But even a victory over the hosts would not have saved them. On an adjacent rink, a 4-2 victory for Switzerland over Germany had already made qualification for the semi-finals a mathematical impossibility.
The damage to Britain's chances had been done long before, with two many costly errors in games the GB quartet should have won. They ended the round-robin series with a record of three wins and six losses, their five last games all ending in defeat."
"Eve Muirhead shouldered the blame for a disappointing end to her Olympics curling debut and looked forward to appearing in future Games after the 'experience of a lifetime' in Vancouver.
Britain's 19-year-old skip struggled with her form as Britain's campaign, which had started promisingly, fell away with five straight round robin defeats.
But veteran Jackie Lockhart predicted Muirhead will be a better player for the experience and her 'fantastic potential' marks her down as one to watch in her next Olympics.
After Britain failed to end on a high note, going down 6-5 to table topping hosts Canada, Muirhead's emotions were a mixture of regret and frustration over a disappointing exit and mistakes and hope for the future ...
'I put the blame on myself because there were a lot of shots that I should be making and they didn't come off,' she said."
"Eve Muirhead may have required a new brush, after a temper tantrum led her and it to fly briefly off the handle, but there is clearly no need for a new broom in British curling.
The teenager's little fit of pique in Monday's 9-8 defeat by Denmark, leaving her with an embarrassing trudge down the ice to get a replacement, was the only moment that betrayed her age. Her form in her first Olympics was up and down, and yesterday's 6-5 defeat by Canada sealed her fate, but given that she came to Vancouver with a world ranking of No 7, Muirhead lived up to form if not inflated expectation ...
Muirhead previewed the Olympics by telling The Times that she wanted to bring curling to a younger audience and she is clearly not alone in doing that. Her time may come when she is older and a little wiser, though, and she could brush away the bad memories from here in the next Olympics, in Sochi, Russia."
