Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Eve Muirhead: Nobody deserves her gold medals more than Elise Christie

Elise Christie is a strong medal contender.
Elise Christie is a strong medal contender.

People say that sport can be cruel, and never was that more true than for Elise Christie at the last Winter Olympics

Her three disqualifications in three events were the talk of Sochi and back home. It was heart-breaking stuff.

I got to know Elise pretty well after competing alongside her for GB in those Games. It’s a lot easier at a Winter Olympics than a summer games because we’re a much smaller group!

What came across was her determination to use the disappointment as motivation for the rest of her career.

Nobody could be prepared for the sort of horrible social media abuse she got after Sochi, so she really had to be made of strong stuff to put that behind her and the memories of failing in her three races.

So I was so pleased for her when I heard she had become a triple world champion at the weekend.

As good as that is, though, a gold medal in Korea next year will be the one she really wants.

And, with that determination I mentioned, I’m confident she’ll do it.

 

* It’s not often I get to compete in a new country these days but the World Championships are my first visit to China.

Hannah Flemings’ team were in Beijing recently so I was able to speak to them about what to expect. My brother Glen has been out here too.

As a team we’re pretty pro-active when it comes to being prepared and we’ve taken extra luggage with essential food in it because a few of us have different allergies and stuff.

It’s definitely a very different culture to any other country I’ve visited.

We’ve been staying at a hotel near the airport since we arrived and have had a few days’ training.

Mind you, let’s just say the ice rink we went to practice at was not quite up to the standard of the Dewar’s Centre in Perth!

I think we were the only team to try and source an ice rink before official practice in the competition arena.

Part of the plan in coming across earlier than usual was to get over the jet lag earlier, which has helped.

We’ve also done the sight-seeing bit and visited the Great Wall, which was unbelievable. What a place. And yesterday we hit Forbidden City and went to an acrobatics show.

The driving has been a bit white-knuckle. No rules and no lanes seems to be the way of things!

It will be full-on game mode from today when all our backroom team will be with us and we get official practice.

It won’t come as a shock that all the big teams are here in Beijing.

Rachel Homan of Canada, Betty Wang from China, Alina Paetz of Switzerland and Anna Hasselborg of Sweden will all be very strong. And the list goes one.

This is my seventh championships and it’s probably the toughest field I’ve seen. That’s the sort of challenge you expect if you want to be the best in the world.

 

* Fortunately we were travelling when Scotland were playing England in the rugby. And unfortunately my fears in last week’s column ended up being proved right.

There has been progress, though, and this team deserves to finish on a high against Italy.