GB men’s curlers scrape into semi-finals to keep hopes of glory alive

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.

Their defeat meant Britain scraped into the semi-finals in fourth place with a 5-4 record, with Magnus Ramsfjell’s Norway qualifying in third as a result of their superior head-to-head against GB.

Switzerland topped the round robin with eight wins from eight, with Canada - who have been caught up in a cheating controversy - in second with seven wins and one defeat.

Norway ultimately triumphed 8-6 over Canada on Thursday but Italy’s defeat meant GB were into the last four regardless.

GB skip Mouat said after beating the US: “This is a horrible position to be in, honestly! Just having to watch other games and hope that the results are going our way is not the ideal position to be in.

“But so far so good and we obviously need tomorrow probably to be the same. We're just gonna have to sit and keep our fingers and our toes crossed and see what happens.”

The semi-finals will take place on Thursday evening at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium, where Britain face table-topping Switzerland; a win would guarantee at least silver. Their round robin encounter went to an extra end and the Swiss prevailed, triumphing 6-5.