Bruce Mouat’s GB curling team lose gold medal to controversial Canadians
Another silver medal for Great Britain’s curlers but after a wait of more than a century, the gold was within their grasp.
With eight ends played, they had edged into a deserved 6-5 lead against Canada and the team of Bruce Mouat, Bobby Lammie and cousins Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan looked for all the world ready to add the one major title that had eluded them during nine brilliant years together.
Inspired once again by their indefatigable skip Mouat, who was playing in his 22nd match across 17 days, they had overcome a 4-3 halfway deficit to take two shots in the sixth end and put an Olympic title in sight.
And then disaster struck.
A missed chance to establish clear daylight in the eighth end need not have been catastrophic but a horrible ninth turned the match on its head. With Canada lying three-up, Mouat needed a miracle with his last stone and while he did rest his red into an awkward position on the button, Canadian skip Brad Jacobs stepped up and removed the British stone for the first three-point score of an otherwise nip-and-tuck match.
That left Britain needing two just to force an additional end and with Mouat unable to improvise a way back, Canada clinched their 9-6 victory.
It was a particularly sweet ending to the tournament for Canada’s Marc Kennedy. He made global headlines and went viral on social media with his now infamous F-bomb outburst after being accused by the Swedish player Oskar Eriksson of cheating by double touching the stone on its release. Kennedy vehemently denied any wrongdoing and while his delivery and indeed reputation has been under sharp scrutiny these past eight days, he returns home to Canada with the most prized medal in his sport.
For Britain, and especially Mouat after a similarly agonising fourth in the mixed event – just as in Beijing four years ago – there was deep frustration. They had inflicted the only defeat all tournament on Switzerland in the semi-final after a series of Mouat wonder shots and appeared to feel both momentum and destiny in trying to join the golden British women’s teams of Rhona Martin in 2002 and Eve Muirhead in 2022.
The men had previously won Olympic gold only when curling was a demonstration event way back in 1924. “I’m a bit in shock – we felt like we were the better team there,” said Mouat, reflecting how Britain had, for so long in the second half of the match, looked on course for victory. Mouat had even referred to it as “our gold” following the semi-final. With millions tuning in for their four-yearly curling feast, he was at least able to emphasise the wider positives of their run to the final, especially after only scraping through the round-robin group stage.
“Regardless of the result, the incredible thing we will take away is the amount of people who have come out to support us,” said Mouat, who stressed that there was no question of retiring. “The boys and I love our sport, we want people to come and join our sport. If we can take anything away from this week as well as the silver medal, it’s being able to inspire people to hopefully want to participate.”
Hardie said: “We wanted to win it for each other. The pain from four years ago was that much, we thought we’d give it another go, had the chance, but unfortunately we haven’t got there again. I’m heartbroken.”
McMillan added: “It took me four years to get over the first silver, so it will probably take a lot longer this time.”
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.
[Source: Daily Telegraph]
