Jamiesonpowershiswaytosilver

REIGNING champions Eve Muirhead and her Scottish team are in the European Curling Campionship final after convincingly beating home nation Sweden yesterday.

Their 9-3 victory gave them the direct passage through to today’s gold medal match, meaning the Swedes will have to battle it out with Russia for the right to meet them.

Sweden opened the scoring with a single in the second, when their fourth player Maria Prytz had to draw against four Scottish counters. But the Scottish breakthrough came in the fifth end when Muirhead had a nose-hit for two.

In a sixth end than featured a spectacular triple take-out by second player Vicki Adams, Sweden levelled the game at 3-3 with a single.

The Scots blanked the seventh and then Muirhead made a hit for four in the eighth for a 7-3 lead and effectively ended the game. The Scots took a steal of two in the ninth when Prytz wrecked, and the teams shook hands with a final score of 9-3.

Muirhead now goes into her third successive European final today.

She said: “I really enjoyed that, and the girls made my job easy. Right until the fifth, each team was forcing ones, but once you get that two, that’s you in control. We OLY M P I C S I LVER medallist Michael Jamieson added another medal to his collection after taking second in the 200 metres breaststroke at the World Short- Course Championships in Istanbul last night.

The 24-year-old had only squeezed into the f inal as the slowest qualifier but he underlined the hunger that drove him to silver at the 2012 Games by touching second behind Daniel Gyurta, who also beat him to gold in London.

Jamieson lowered his own British record to two minutes 03.00 seconds with team-mate Andrew blanked the seventh end and went for a two in the eighth and came out with a four, which was a bit of a bonus.”

Muirhead added: “I love these big games, we’ve trained so hard all season and this shows all our hard work is beginning to pay off.

“I don’t really mind who we play in the final but I think that coming out and winning like that will play on their minds, whichever team it is.” the final after seeing the result, I was just so annoyed.

“But I just went back and dressed myself down a bit — it just goes to show you can race best times unrested.”

Lizzie Simmonds — a Bath stablemate of Jamieson andWillis — was fifth in the 200m backstroke.

The 21-year-old also squeezed in in eighth place but was third with 50m to go although the fact she is in the midst of heavy training had an undoubted effect in the latter stages.

Simmonds, fourth in London, was overhauled and finished in 2:04.55. AMIR KHAN admits the last 12 months have been the worst year of his life as he aims to end a catastrophic run by beating Carlos Molina in a “make or break” fight tonight.

The Bolton light-welterweight faces unbeaten Molina at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena knowing it is win or bust following two devastating defeats in a row.

Khan (26) lost a controversial decision to Lamont Peterson in Washington a year ago before being stunned by Danny Garcia in a fourth-round stoppage on his next appearance.

Now he faces untested Molina, acutely aware that another shock defeat will send him crashing out of the world title picture and perhaps end his career as an elite-level fighter.

“It’s a make or break fight for me because I have to win it if I want to move on to bigger and better things,” he said.

“This year has probably been the worst of my life. It’s been tough. It’s just about regrouping and redeeming myself.”

“It’s one of the biggest fights of my life after everything that’s happened. Every fight is a big fight for me but this is one that I’m taking very seriously.”

Californian Molina is is confident he can follow Peterson and Garcia by springing an upset.

“We know Amir doesn’t like pressure fighters and whatever way we can make him uncomfortable, that’s what we’ll do. I’m going to make this a street fight.”