GB curlers on brink of early exit after Canada defeat

Team GB’s Winter Olympics curling medal hopes are now in serious jeopardy after Bruce Mouat’s world champions were beaten 9-5 by Canada in Cortina.

Arriving in Italy as gold-medal favourites, the British quartet have lost four of their eight matches in a round-robin stage full of maybes and might have beens.

Now, they must beat the United States in their final game on Wednesday (13:05 GMT) and hope other results fall in their favour if they are to reach Thursday’s semi-finals and salvage their chances of a podium place.

The 2022 silver medallists have spoken all week of playing well, but coming out on the wrong side of the narrow margins. And that was the case again against their great rivals high in the Dolomites.

A shot here and a shot there was the difference, as Canada kept their shape better in the big moments and confirmed their own progress.

«That wasn’t a game where we played well,» vice-skip Grant Hardie told BBC Sport. «We made too many mistakes and we’re running out of time to put it right.

«I think we can deliver the right result tomorrow and hopefully get into the semis.»

Mouat’s rink have an excellent record against Brad Jacobs’ team, and beat them in the last four of the worlds last spring.

But the Canadians knew they could improve their own chances – and inflict a little revenge – and they started strongly, opening a 3-1 lead after three ends.

The British team are considered the world’s best, though, and righted themselves. Capitalising on a slight drop off by their opponents, they took two themselves in the fourth and another two in the six to lead with four to play.

However, the clank of granite went against them in the seventh, an unfortunate bounce leaving Canada the chance of three, which they gladly took.

Mouat and his team needed to respond. They couldn’t. Instead, they gave up a steal to leave themselves with a three-point deficit with two ends to play.

It was a deficit that they could not overcome. And now, their aspirations of upgrading their silver medal from Beijing are no longer in their own hands.

GB’s women are also in a perilous position, and also must beat the United States on Wednesday (08:05), as well as Japan later in the day (18:05) and Italy on Thursday (13:05) if they are to scrape into the last four.