Olympics-Curling-Britain trounce US to keep playoff hopes alive

By Aadi Nair

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 18 (Reuters) – Bruce Mouat’s Britain bounced back from a run of three straight defeats to crush the U.S. 9-2 on Wednesday, keeping alive the world champions’ hopes of qualifying for the semi-finals of the men’s curling competition at the Winter Olympics.

Britain, the top-ranked team in the world and Olympic silver medallists in 2022, have struggled in the past two days but were back to their best against Danny Casper’s U.S., wrapping up the win with four ends to spare.

“It felt like we were close a lot of the week. We just had a few one or two shots maybe in a game that were going the wrong way for us, and this time we felt like we were getting breaks,” Mouat said. 

“Which we probably hadn’t really felt like we had most of the week. We put in a really good performance.”

Britain are third in the standings and have played all their games, winning five and losing four. Norway and Italy are joint-fourth with four wins and both teams have one match left to play.

“You want to be in control of your own destiny, but now seeing all these other teams trying to still get into the playoffs, it’s hard,” Mouat said.

“Obviously you want everyone to play well, but you’re supporting their opposition at times.”

Yannick Schwaller’s Switzerland and Brad Jacobs’ Canada, who have both qualified for the semi-finals, also won.

Switzerland beat Norway 10-4 to pick up their eighth win of the competition and remain unbeaten, while Canada fought back from a 3-0 deficit to defeat hosts Italy 8-3.

“We’re just enjoying ourselves a lot here. I wanted to get to this stage for my whole career and all my teammates had the same idea,” Schwaller said.

“It’s all an experience. We want to enjoy ourselves and that we do, and it translates, I think, to the ice.”

The Czech Republic, led by Lukas Klima, picked up their second win of the competition, beating China 10-5 in a game between teams in the lower half of the standings.

Teams play nine matches in the round-robin stage, which concludes in the morning session on Thursday, with the top four playing in the semi-finals in the evening.

(Reporting by Aadi Nair, editing by Ed Osmond)