The following images will, surely, be on your TV screen in the run-up to the Winter Olympics: businesslike Scottish lassie plays the bagpipes; plays a curling shot; plays the bagpipes...

Eve Muirhead, who will soon be demonstrating her prowess on ice in Vancouver, has been involved in the most Scottish of sports for as long as she has been inducing sound from the most Scottish of instruments - that is, since she was eight.

In between times she has dedicated herself to another pastime not unknown north of the border – golf.

If  Muirhead didn't already exist, the Scottish Tourist Board would surely have had to invent her.

Scottishness, however, is not the key element of this young resident of Blair Atholl. The key element is competitiveness.

So she doesn't just play the bagpipes. As a member of the Pitlochry and Blair Atholl Pipe Band she has competed successfully at national championships and finished fourth in the World Championships.

And in golf, too, Muirhead has had success at national level, although she has made the decision to put that particular sporting ambition on hold. "Golf and curling go together well as summer and winter sports, but in the last year I've been concentrating on the curling," she says.

While curling, like bowling, has acquired a far more youthful demographic in recent times, the job of skipping a team - that is, deciding on the strategy and delivering the four final, decisive stones of each game - has traditionally been the domain of the experienced older hand.

Jackie Lockhart, the 44-year-old mother-of-two who will also be competing in Vancouver, fits that profile to perfection. And yet the woman who skipped the British team to a world title seven years ago will only be second-in-command when it comes to the task of trying to emulate the famous Olympic victory achieved by Rhona Martin and Co at the Salt Lake Games of 2002.

Muirhead (pictured) will be the skip – at the age of 19.

Ewan Macdonald, a member of the British men’s team at the 2006 Winter Games who will be renewing his Olympic ambitions in 2010, acknowledges that the appointment goes against the general trend within the sport.

"It's quite unusual to be named skip at her age," he says. "But Eve is a great player, and she handles herself really well under pressure. She’s a one-off, that’s for sure."

Muirhead’s ability has already earned her the unofficial title of the world’s best young player as she has won three successive world junior titles, the last two as skip.

On the subject of her forthcoming Olympic challenge, she delivers her words as she does her stones - with authority

"If you are good enough, you are old enough," she says. "I'm very lucky to have someone as experienced as Jackie in the team. It's great to be able to ask someone like her what she thinks during a match.

"We have a fantastic relationship as a team. You have to have that to succeed. There's no point in just me and Jackie getting on."

She admits she took a little time to settle into her latest role.

"I was definitely a bit nervous at the start, being so young, and skipping players who were a lot older and more experienced than me."

But ultimately, you wonder, is she comfortable in following her own counsel, even if it isn't the one recommended by her team-mates? There is no hesitation in the response.

"Yes," she says. "That’s the role of the skip - you've got to make decisions. And they have to be the right decisions."

Muirhead may be confident, but she is anything but arrogant. Asked to assess the strength of the challengers awaiting her team in Canada she is painstakingly respectful. "China are the world ladies champions, so they will obviously be tough to beat," she says. "The Japanese too. And Canada is a great curling nation. We also have to look out for Switzerland and Sweden, who are the Olympic champions. There are no weak teams."

Matching the deeds of Rhona Martin’s team of 2002 (pictured) will be a huge task.

Muirhead recalls being allowed to stay up as a 12-year-old to watch the 2002 final on television - her father, Gordon, had a confirmed interest in the result, having won a silver medal at the 1992 Winter Games when curling was introduced as a demonstration sport.

"Rhona’s win was such a great inspiration to myself, and to the sport," she recalls. "Six years later I've got the opportunity to go out there and have a shot at gold myself."

Muirhead was able to draw directly on Martin’s experience at the last World Junior Championships, where the Olympic champion was head coach.

"We were able to talk through tactics every day," Muirhead says.

So will she be bringing the Rhona style to her forthcoming Olympic matches?

Well, no.

"It's more a case of putting together a game plan based on the opponents you are playing," she says. Firmly.

While Martin may be an inspiration, this young Olympian is clearly following her own path towards glory...

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames