Piping’s newest Gold Medallist: Eve Muirhead

The Highland Society of London isn’t the exclusive domain for Gold Medals for pipers after Eve Muirhead of Blair Atholl, Scotland, was the skip for the Scottish Women’s Curling team to record-setting victory at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

The 31-year-old Muirhead has been a piper since she was a teenager, taught by Christy and Sharon Kelly, co-pipe-majors of Grade 3 Pitlochry & Blair Atholl, which Muirhead joined when the band was formed in 2004. She started in pipe bands with Novice Juvenile Vale of Atholl.

Muirhead led Britain to the Olympic women’s curling gold medal, the first gold for the UK since 2002, with a record-setting 10-3 win over Japan. Britain won with a four-ender in the seventh to seal the deal.

While she’s had to curtail her involvement with the band in order to focus on curling, Christy Kelly said, “We are still her band though, and she’s still attached to us. We are immensely proud of her!”

Muirhead’s team won a bronze medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and has several World and European championships to her name.

Also a scratch golfer, Muirhead was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2020, has received an honourary doctorate from the University of Stirling, and maybe her greatest accolade was being named the ambassador of the 2010 Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping.

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