The curling twist giving Great Britain hope of Winter Olympics great escape
Bruce Mouat’s rink did what they needed to do, but must now wait as their rivals play out the round robin stage to decide who advances to the men’s curling semi-finals in Cortina
Great Britain are on a knife edge between curling catastrophe and the great escape - and there is nothing more they can do about it.
Just as their Winter Olympics dreams were circling the drain after a shocking collapse in form, Bruce Mouat’s rink played like the world champions they are to keep their medal hopes alive for at least another day.
They finished their round-robin campaign with the kind of confident and dominant victory they were expected to produce consistently in Cortina, wiping the floor with the USA to finish with a 5-4 record from nine games.
It was a timely reminder – both to themselves, their doubters and their rivals – that they are still a world-class team capable of blowing all the others out of the water.
But it also left a bitter taste of understandable frustration that Team GB has not shown it enough to this point.
Switzerland and Canada, who are both assured of a semi-final spot and can look ahead to the medal matches, will be more concerned with the former.
They know Mouat – and teammates Grant Hardie, Hammy McMillan Jr and Bobby Lammie – are capable of going on a tear and romping to the gold medal.
Ironically, Britain need their help to join them in the four-way shoot-out and the formbook suggests they might just get it.
Britain’s win leaves themselves, Norway, Italy and USA in contention for the last two spots.
They are currently third in the standings but Norway and the host nation both have a game to play and can overtake them.
In a delicious twist of fate, Italy play the unbeaten Swiss and Norway face a Canada side that has lost just once tomorrow morning. If either lose, Mouat and co are in. If Norway and Italy win, they are toast.
“It is a horrible position to be in,” Mouat said.
“Having to watch other games and hope they go our way is not the position we wanted to be in but so far so good.
“We need tomorrow to be the same. We will keep our fingers and our toes crossed and see what happens."
It is going to be a nervy 24 hours.
After losing to Canada last night, Mouat and his squad knew a win against America was imperative, and they responded with their best display of the tournament.
They only needed six ends to do it. Mouat is renowned as the best player in the world on his day and played like it, stealing a point in each of the first two ends, while his counterpart – the inexperienced Daniel Casper – badly struggled under pressure.
In the third end, Casper wildly overthrew the final stone to leave Britain sitting four stones to take a 6-0 lead.
Casper pulled a couple back before halfway but Mouat had found his touch and he delivered another three in the sixth end to prompt quick handshakes.
“We will be following both games tomorrow very closely,” McMillan said
“We treat it as two events, qualifying for the semis and then the knock-outs.
“It's pretty much a clean slate. Everything that’s happened this week so far is forgotten about and you’ve literally got two games.”
In curling, it is not how you start but how you finish.
Team GB chef de mission Eve Muirhead, who was here this afternoon, will no doubt be reminding them that her squad also limped to a 5-4 round-robin in Beijing and then walked to the gold.
More recently, in last week’s mixed doubles, Mouat and Jen Dodds also qualified top of the table and were dumped out in the semi-finals by a Swedish team that scraped their way to the semi-finals and then won gold.
Mouat will hope they are also given a reprieve this week. If not, hard questions will be asked of a team that arrived as the favourites for the title.
“We’ve been very open and honest about what our goal is this week. And our goal is to come here and to be standing at the top of the podium,” said McMillan.
“It’s the only medal in the last eight years we don’t have.
“So yeah, it will be extremely disappointing if that doesn’t happen but fingers crossed that tomorrow one or maybe two results go away.”
TNT Sports on discovery+ will be the go-to destination in the U.K to watch everything of Milano Cortina 2026 live all in one place, with over 850 hours of action from every sport, venue, and medal event.’
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