Milano Cortina 2026 might be over and out, but the memory lives on for Chef de Mission Eve Muirhead.
A month on from the 2026 Games, the former competitive curler is opening the doors and giving us a sneak peek at what it takes to lead a delegation.
The final part in our Team GB series, get ready to go behind the scenes one last time; welcome to Diary of a Chef: Part Six.
The team did themselves, their sports, and the entire nation proud at Milano Cortina 2026. The way everyone handled the Games and performed when it mattered the most was amazing to watch. Yes, it was the most successful Winter Games in our history, but it was special because of the people. The positivity and support lifted everyone up and has paved the way for those that will come after. This Games was an experience I will never forget.
When I got back, I took a bit of time off and slept quite a lot which was very much needed. When you're out at the Games, it's long days and sleepless nights, but the adrenaline keeps you going. I never really thought Olympic blues were a thing, but I probably felt it more from this role than what I did as an athlete, which is bizarre. It suddenly hits you that it's over and you kind of wake up and you're back to normality. You're not there seeing the same faces, you're not there ready at the drop of a hat if anyone needs or wants anything. I took a few days away and went up to Scotland to see some family and just really enjoyed time at home, cooking my own food, getting up when I wanted to get up, going to bed when I wanted to and most importantly, my own comfy bed as well.
The Olympics are not a novelty for Muirhead who competed at four as an athlete, but the realm she was stepping into was. And when the athletes began flooding into the Village, the reality that she was not there to compete finally hit in full force.
It's funny because as an athlete, you have sleepless nights for different reasons. You worry you're not getting enough hours in, or you're making sure you're getting the right nutrition in your body, you're worried about making sure you make the bus on time. In this role, you really wake up not knowing what's ahead of you that day and it doesn't matter what food you're putting into your body. What is the most important thing is making sure those athletes have everything that they want and need. And making sure that bus is going to be there on time for them.
At the start, it was definitely a strange feeling, especially when the athletes arrived. For four Games I'd been there as an athlete and then suddenly I wasn't and part of me still had to kind of pull myself away from having that athlete mentality on in the Olympic village or in the Olympic bubble. I needed to remind myself that I wasn't an athlete and I'm here for something completely different. What was really great and new for me, was that I obviously got to know a lot of the athletes, team leaders and support staff. During that time in the food hall or in HQ, when you're sitting down chatting to each other, that really feels special.
In terms of things I didn't really expect was how much of that first week was literally just lifting and shifting stuff. Which is fine, I get my hands dirty. I get stuck in. That's what I want to do. But it literally is building furniture, carrying bits and bobs up and down stairs from sofas to cabinets to coffee machines, to desks, to TVs, you name it!
An Olympic Games comes with many weird and wonderful moments for those on the ground, in fact there are often many that it can be difficult to remember everything. But when forced to look away from the golden highs and historic performances that came for GB in Italy, it's the oddities that Muirhead remembers.
Away from the results and the medals, I remember the weird things. I love breakfast. If I don't have breakfast, I don't work as a person. And the scrambled egg was not great where we were staying but there was this one day when it was better and it became this ongoing joke that it was a different scrambled egg chef. It's not really an incredible moment but it was just a classic Games-time moment that sticks with you. On a more serious note, I should say when I sat next to Princess Anne and watched a game of curling! That was a very privileged moment. I was more or less explaining the game to her but she does know quite a bit about it.
Something that's been very nice is all the very positive messages that I've received on the back of the Games. I think the fresh leadership approach helped create a lot of development opportunities for other Team GB staff and just to see them come into their own has been great. Last week I got a really nice message from Matt Weston just basically thanking me for doing such an incredible job and to help him kind of perform. That was really nice to get.
Having an Olympian in the Chef de Mission role created a lot of kind of credibility for the athletes and the sports and I think that strong media presence reinforced Team GB's narrative externally. But I'm not going to lie, I found the media side hard. As an athlete, you speak about your sport, you speak about what you did well, probably what you could do better. But in this role, you could get anything thrown at you and not necessarily even about sport, it could be anything. That was one thing that I definitely took a lot of time to be briefed on and to prep for.
With Milano Cortina 2026 now behind us, Muirhead looks ahead to a new leadership role in the inaugural season of curling's Rock League. And after the experience of a lifetime leading Team GB, she's excited to see what is next for her in the space.
It is still unknown to me as to what's ahead but I have absolutely loved it this role. It has been a steep learning curve but I've got a lot of clear fixes for next time now. It's crucial that I kind of get my ducks in a row just for my next few months and what they look like first but sport has always been something that I've been passionate about and I would like to think that I've stepped into this role and gained quite a lot of kind of credibility as well. I would love to still be involved in Olympic sport for sure in the future.
For now, I'm turning my attention to the Rock League which is the first professional curling league in the world. I'm the general manager for Team Alpine and I'm really, really looking forward to that. It's going to be different. I'm overseeing 10 of the best curlers in Europe and it's up to me to decide what the team lineups are and I'm basically just kind of managing them. It's going to be an incredible experience and for curling in general, a first professional league is really great for the sport.
Sportsbeat 2026