Eve Muirhead hailed her side’s vital victory over the United States which moved Great Britain back into contention in the women’s curling competition at the Winter Olympics in Beijing.

Muirhead’s team went into the game against their unbeaten opponents in danger of being cast adrift in the round-robin stages after losing two of their first three matches.

But they responded with an emphatic 10-5 win, coming on strong to take five points over the last three ends and set them up nicely for a Sunday afternoon clash with Denmark.

“We had to come out sharp after the defeat yesterday and I am delighted with our performance,” said Muirhead, who is bidding to improve on the bronze medal she won in Sochi in 2014.

“The girls played fantastically and just made my job easy against a team that hadn’t lost.

“We’ve got some momentum now, and we need to remember the good things we did because we dwell too much on mistakes sometimes.”