World curling champion Eve Muirhead will be prevented from defending her title next year following an astonishing ruling by her sport’s governing body in Scotland.
Team Muirhead, led by the Perthshire skip, won gold in Latvia earlier this year and returned to a heroes’ welcome, including a civic reception with First Minister Alex Salmond in Edinburgh.
The team which wins the Scottish Championship in Perth gets to represent Scotland in the Worlds, and in the last two years Muirhead, Anna Sloan, Claire Hamilton and Vicki Adams have blown away the competition as the only full-time rink.
Next year there is a slight overlap between the Olympic Games in Sochi, which Team Muirhead are 99.9% certain to be selected for, and the Scottish finals.
The Royal Caledonian Club have decided they do not want to move the date of the Scottish to enable either the women’s or men’s Olympic teams to take part however, so their path into the Worlds has been blocked.
The RCCC and the curling performance coaches have decided not to overturn this policy, which was adopted in 2011.
Muirhead is heartbroken at being denied the chance to defend her world crown in Canada.
“We’re absolutely gutted,” she said.
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