Bruce Mouat’s GB curling team lose gold medal to ‘cheating’ Canadians

With so much at stake between two of the very best teams in the world, the first half of the match was tense and hard fought. Canada initially had the hammer but Team GB still built the first end impressively to hold three and place early pressure on Jacobs. He had the answer, though, and calmly drew first blood.

Team GB continued their precise start in the second end, once again steadily placing Canada on the defensive, with Lammie particularly influential to present Mouat with the chance to take two on the hammer. True to form, the Scot did not waste the chance. Canada were already on the back foot but British errors then crept in and, with Kennedy setting up the end quite beautifully, Mouat was powerless to prevent Jacobs, his opposite number, from himself talking two. After trading shots, the sixth end felt pivotal. Trailing by two, Mouat needed to cannon off one stone and then remove one of the Canadian yellows to take a pair for Team GB and seal a major momentum shift. He duly delivered, leaving Britain in control until that fateful ninth end.

“Ultimately, a couple of back to back mistakes in the ninth have have cost us – and the guys are big enough and bold enough to admit that that’s elite curling,” said the coach, Greg Drummond.

It is Britain’s fourth medal of what is now arguably their greatest Winter Olympics. Yes, they have not yet reached the five medals won in 2018 and 2014 (although that could change with Zoe Atkin in the freestyle ski halfpipe on Sunday morning) but they have already won three golds after never previously managing more than one at a single Olympic Games. Five fourth-place finishes also suggests wider progress.

Atkin, who is the reigning world champion in the half-pipe, had been due to take on her great Chinese rival Eileen Gu in Livigno on Saturday night. Persistent snow, however, had affected visibility and the final has been pushed back to the final day of these Winter Games.