Eve Muirhead: How bagpipes helped led to Winter Olympic gold and Team GB post

In November, she announced she was launching the Muirhead Curling Academy, having six months earlier being named Team GB’s chef de mission for Milano Cortina.

Muirhead hopes to impart her knowledge of everything from the “really different environment” experienced in the athletes’ village to expectations of success bearing down on the athletes.

“I think what we’re getting very good at is celebrating all different kinds of wins as well,” she says. “Being the chef de mission leading into this Games, I think we need to be very careful and not put all the pressure on the medal hopefuls.

“There’s so many athletes that are going there that a top-10 finish for them is a win. So you’ve got to remember that everyone’s at different levels and I guess I could relate that back to me in Vancouver, when you have an outside chance of a medal but finishing top six would have been very good.”

Muirhead admits “sometimes I wish I still was an athlete” as she now “more or less has an office job…sitting in front of a laptop”.

However, she insists: “Honestly, I absolutely love it. It’s been a real eye-opener for me being on the other side of the fence from an athlete.

“I probably was a little bit selfish as an athlete. I maybe didn’t give everybody the respect that they needed that helped deliver what they did to make my performance easy or make the platform that I performed on such a smooth sailing journey.

“Flip that over, that’s my job now. And I always have that athlete’s hat on that I want to create that perfect platform for these athletes to perform at their very best at the Olympic Games.

“In a way as well, I’m in charge of helping deliver those athletes dreams – a dream that they probably had since a young kid, worked very hard for right up until Milano Cortina. It’s also great working with all the winter sports and not just curling, so I’m also learning a lot – every day is still a school day for me.”

As for those beloved bagpipes, Muirhead adds: “I’m still able to kind of pick them up every now and then and have a tune.

“I seem just to be a kind of cheap gig for friends’ weddings and things.” At least that comes with “maybe a free meal” and “a free bar”.

You can listen to Eve Muirhead, former footballer Ryan Stevenson and writer, comedian and director Kate Hammer on The Saturday Show on BBC Radio Scotland with hosts Amy Irons and Steven Mill from 09:00 GMT until 12:00 on Saturday.