Winter Olympics live: Team GB scrape into men’s curling semi-finals and women will try to follow

Attention will soon turn to GB’s women, who face Italy from 1.05pm GMT and still have a chance of joining the men in the semi-finals but need some help.

First of all, GB must beat Italy in their final match and have USA lose to Switzerland. If either of those things don’t happen, then Team GB are out.

Providing GB win and the US lose, everything then hinges on the Canada v South Korea match. If South Korea win, then GB will be through, as they hold the head-to-head advantage over the US and Canada.

However, if Canada win there will be a three-way tie between GB, South Korea and the US for the final spot which is unable to be sorted by head to head results for the trio, as each team won one match and lost match against the others. Who qualifies would be decided by the draw stone challenge (DSC).

Before every group-stage match, both teams do a last stone draw (LSD) throwing two stones as close to the centre as possible to see who will have the hammer first. The average distance of each team’s LSDs throughout the round robin will be tallied and the team that have done best will advance to the semi-finals. We will know the LSD rankings once the final set have been completed ahead of this afternoon’s matches.

Team GB could only watch on helplessly this morning but they got help from elsewhere as Switzerland beat Italy to send GB through to the semi-finals of the men’s curling tournament

Here’s the full semi-final schedule and details:

Mikaela Shiffrin stood on the Olympic podium, a gold medal gleaming around her neck, her expression a mixture of triumph and profound disbelief.

The American skiing sensation had not merely clinched a slalom victory, ending an eight-year medal drought at the Winter Games and reaffirming her status as arguably the greatest Alpine skier of all time. She had also conquered a deeply personal battle.

"It’s like," Shiffrin reflected, pausing before adding, “being born again."

Competing in what she described as a "spiritual state”, Shiffrin delivered two dominant runs amidst the stunning, jagged peaks of the Dolomites.

Great Britain’s winter sports governing bodies could be asked to work more closely together in a bid to make limited funding stretch further.

More than £25m was invested across seven different national associations, covering 11 sports, to prepare Team GB for these Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina.

A medal range of four to eight was set by UK Sport, with Team GB’s three golds leaving them just short of the lower end target, with four days of competition and three live medal chances remaining.

By comparison, Australia invested £18m in their winter sports programme and sit just above Team GB in the medal table with six medals, including three golds.

There is a growing belief from several long-standing senior members of Britain’s high-performance sector that winter sports must collaborate more closely.

An Australian presenter has apologised after going viral for her slurred speech during a Winter Olympics report.

Channel Nine journalist Danika Mason stumbled over her words during a broadcast on Wednesday, discussing iguanas and the price of coffee during a sports update.

The next morning, Mason apologised for her previous segment and said she takes “full responsibility.”

“I shouldn’t have had a drink, and especially in these conditions, it’s cold, we’ve got altitude, and not having had dinner probably didn’t help as well. It’s not the standard that I set for myself… I’m really sorry.”

The Canada vs Norway match has now finished as well and the Norwegians held on to secure an 8-6 victory that sends them through to the semi-finals. It also confirms the semi-final match-ups...

Great Britain will play table-topping, unbeaten Switzerland in their semi-final, knowing a win would guarantee a medal. When the teams faced off in the round robin stage, it went to an extra end and the Swiss prevailed, triumphing 6-5. Will it be that close again?

The other semi-final sees a rematch of this morning’s clash between Canada and Norway.

Both those semi-finals will take place at 6.05pm GMT this evening, so Bruce Mouat’s rink have just over seven hours to prepare.

Team GB’s men’s curling team kept their hopes of defending or improving their silver medal from Beijing alive as they scraped into the semi-finals - but only because other results went their way.

Bruce Mouat’s rink looked on the verge of defeat on Wednesday but thrashed the USA 9-2 to underline their status as one of the best teams in the world, despite their relative underperformance in Cortina d’Ampezzo.

That result was not enough to book their place in the last four, as they required either Italy or Norway to lose both of their final two round-robin games in order to progress.

Both lost on Wednesday but Team GB endured a nervous wait on Thursday as Norway stormed to a 7-2 lead over already-qualified Canada before being pegged back, while Italy kept unbeaten Switzerland honest in a tense encounter.

However, Italy lost 9-5 after skip Joel Retornaz missed a chance to score three in the eighth end with a poor penultimate stone which put paid to their chances.

And there it is! Switzerland take two in the ninth end to beat Italy 9-5 and that means Bruce Mouat’s British rink will qualify for the semi-finals!

It was nervy at points during the round robin stage but they’ve made it through and they’ll play that semi-final this evening

Heavy snowfall in Livigno on Thursday morning forced the postponement of Olympic men's ski halfpipe qualifying and men's aerials, further disrupting the competition schedule.

More than half a foot of snow blanketed the mountain town, delaying the men's halfpipe event. A new start time is yet to be decided, while men's aerials has been moved to Friday.

Women's halfpipe qualifying, featuring defending champion Eileen Gu, remains on schedule for Thursday evening.

Weather conditions are expected to improve for Friday and Saturday, the final two days of action.

Italy scramble two in the eighth end to close the deficit to 7-5 against Switzerland after eighth ends but the Swiss will have the hammer. It’s looking grim for the Italians but great for GB.

Italy actually had a chance to score three in that end but skip Joel Retornaz played a poor penultimate stone to squander that opportunity