Great Britain skip David Murdoch could only describe guaranteeing his first Winters Olympic medal after 12 years of effort as “outrageous” following a dramatic 6-5 semi-final win against Sweden in Sochi yesterday.
The 35-year-old, who lost the bronze medal match to the United States at the 2006 Olympics in Turin and was knocked out in a tie-break by Sweden at Vancouver 2010, was under even more pressure at the Ice Cube Curling Centre after the GB women’s team had lost to Canada in their last-four game earlier in the day.
However, in the final throw of 10 compelling ends, the Lockerbie-born skip replicated his thrilling last-stone win in the tie-break against Norway to set up a final appearance against Canada tomorrow, where he will be assured of a silver medal at least.
“It is just outrageous,” he said.
“I can’t believe it. It’s 12 years of dedicating my life to a sport – to get up, to beat your body up, to go through injuries, to train hard, to make a lot of sacrifices.
“I can’t believe after all those years we are in a final now. It pays off eventually.”
Murdoch took time out from speaking about his joy and delight to remember the people from his home town, forever to be associated with December 21, 1988 when Pan-Am Flight 103 crashed down, a terrible scene which as a 10-year-old he witnessed from his father’s car.
All 259 on board the plane destroyed by a terrorist bomb were killed, while 11 residents of Lockerbie also died.
“I’m proud to be from Lockerbie,” he said. “It was the 25th anniversary recently and I never forget what happened there.
“It’s an important anniversary and I’m sure we are going to have them all cheering us on.”
The good people of the small Scottish Borders town would surely have forgiven one of their favourite sons – who these days lives in Stirling – for revelling in his achievement, and he revealed the experience of coming close in two Olympics helped his journey to the final in Russia.
“Experience has been a big factor,” he said.
“Having that experience of the two near misses in Turin and Vancouver, that helped me set up my play all week, to keep a cool head.
“And for young guys at 24 and 25, to be performing like that is just incredible. I take my hat off to them, it’s so good they believe in themselves and we believe in ourselves as a team.”
Asked how important the colour of his medal is to him, Murdoch replied: “I want the gold, there’s no doubt about that.
“You get this opportunity once in a lifetime and it’s up to us to really seize the day, and if we do that we are Olympic champions and that’s incredible history.
“I’m delighted to be in the final and delighted to get the medal that I have chased for so long, but we want the gold and we’ll be pushing everything to get that.
“I hope it’s our time. The curling gods have been looking down on me nicely this week and it makes a change.
“We have to go out there with confidence and no fear, go for it and believe it. If we play well then we’ve got every chance.”