Eve Muirhead and her Olympic bronze medal curling team travelled home from the Le Gruyere European Curling Championships with more bronze medals to add to their collection.
They beat Denmark 8-4 in the third-place play-off game but also returned home with mixed feelings.
As she watched world champions Switzerland add the European title by beating Russia 8-7 in the gold medal game, she said: “It’s been a battle of a week.
“It’s been tough and we’ve put a lot of pressure on ourselves, but all in all, you can’t win them all.
“Coming away with a medal was our first goal that’s what we’ve done and I’m delighted that we’ve done that.”
Although the Scots struggled on occasion through the campaign their six end 8-2 round-robin loss to Russia comes to mind they managed to get their act together in the bronze game to beat Denmark for this first time, having lost to them twice earlier in the competition.
“I was pleased with our performance in the medal game,” Muirhead said.
“That means we finished on a high.”
Muirhead also pointed out that they have had to introduce a new team member at lead player, Sarah Reid, but was full of praise for her.
“Sarah was a full team member for the first time and she hardly missed a shot, so I’m really pleased.
“But with that change, and coming off the back of the Olympic medal, it was always going to be one of those seasons.”
Naturally, Muirhead has enjoyed her time and the attention she had had since her Olympic achievement but now she says: “We’ve gone back to normal in the last few weeks, just being four normal girls.”
Not all that normal though, as the Muirhead team now fly to Canada to take part in one of the major Grand Slam events there, pitting themselves against the very best in the world.
David Edwards’ Aberdeen-based men’s team finished seventh overall to secure Scotland’s place in the line-up at next year’s Ford World Men’s Championship in Halifax, Canada.