At just 19, Muirhead has been named as the skip of Britain's Olympic curling team having grown up with the sport and captained her first curling team at the age of 13 at the Scottish junior national championships.

But despite the fact that Muirhead is the youngest member of an experienced squad, Martin - who is currently the national junior coach and has helped her develop into one of the world’s best curlers - believes that the precocious teenager will make a fantastic skip and not be affected by the pressure of competing at an Olympic Games.

Martin told insidethegames: "Eve is a very talented athlete and has a very mature head on young shoulders.

"It is always a pleasure to work with someone with an enormous amount of passion and talent for the game.

"I have no doubt that Eve will skip the GB team well and she has no fear about playing the last stones.”

At the Salt Lake City 2002 Games, Martin kept her nerve to throw the most famous stone in British history - "the stone of destiny" - to dramatically claim Olympic gold.

But despite her phenomenal success, Martin admitted that the the Perth youngster would do an even better job of throwing the final stone than Martin herself did in 2002 should another nail-biting moment occur in Vancouver.

Martin said: “If Eve has to play 'the stone of destiny' I am convinced she will make an ever better job of it than I did.

"People seemed to be nervous when I was playing my last stone but if Eve were to play it everyone would be confident that she would make it."

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