The Winter Olympics medal hopes of Team GB’s men’s curlers have been cast into doubt after a shock 8-6 defeat by Norway left them scrambling to make the semi-finals in Cortina.
Bruce Mouat’s world champions had lost two of their opening six matches, and were expected to beat the Norwegians for their fifth victory of the competition.
Leading 4-2 after six ends, they appeared to be in good shape. But a few untimely errors, combined with a disciplined display by their unheralded opponents, left them 6-4 down with two ends left.
Mouat’s attempted triple takeout in the penultimate end was a fraction out, but still yielded two to level the scores going into the last. However, Norway held their nerve with the hammer to close out an unexpected victory.
Given results elsewhere,, external five wins might still prove to be enough to reach Thursday’s semis.
But the British rink will need to beat both Canada on Tuesday and the United States the following day (both 18:05 GMT).
“We need to win our next two to make sure we’re definitely in the semis,” lead Hammy McMillan told BBC Sport. “We’re doing a lot of the right things, we just need to find that extra inch.”
The women’s rink are not well-placed, either, but they did deliver their best in the biggest moment to beat Denmark 7-2 and keep their hopes alive.
Having lost three of their opening four, Rebecca Morrison’s rink need victories in at least four of their final five matches to have any chance of salvaging a place in Friday’s last four – and they began that quest well.
An aggressive start was rewarded with an early 2-0 advantage and the British rink led 3-2 at the break.
Another fine two-point haul in the sixth, followed by a steal in the seventh, opened up a four-point gap with three ends to play and the Scottish quartet closed out the win.
They are back on the ice against Switzerland at 18:05 GMT in another must-win contest, live on the BBC.
