Brits not Finnished as Murdoch eyes curling bronze

Published on Thursday 23 February 2006 11:00

BOUNCING back is the buzz phrase for David Murdoch after Britain's semi-final curling defeat last night.

Skip Murdoch is determined his team don't leave Italy empty handed and is looking to avenge the final four loss against Finland in tomorrow's bronze medal clash with the United States.

"We owe it to the nation to go out now and get that bronze medal," said Murdoch.

"As disappointed as we are now, we'll be even more disappointed if we come home from these Olympics with nothing.

The whole team has played with confidence and spirit and we need to continue that on Friday."

Scots ice dancers Sinead and John Kerr were part of a large British cheering squad in Pinerolo but they didn't bring any of their trademark sparkle as Finland eased to a 4-3 final stone win.

Finnish skip Markku Uusipaavalneimi is a man with nine syllables in his name but seemingly only one way of winning - ugly.

For every stone Britain placed in the house, the Finns just effortlessly knocked it away. It was the curling opposite of sexy football.

However, Murdoch hung on valiantly and even made Uusipaavalneimi make a difficult final shot before he secured his win and gold medal match against Canada.

"I'm gutted, it's totally heart-wrenching," admitted Murdoch.

"It was just their day but we made them make a very hard shot to win it.

"Curling comes down to inches and we were just a few inches the wrong side of winning tonight."

Murdoch's task will be to lift his team's flagging spirits ahead of their date with Pete Fenson's Americans, who beat Britain during the group stages.

They spent several minutes on the ice after last night's defeat, Murdoch admitting the manner of Finland's victory had hit them hard.

Euan Byers looked shell-shocked by the loss, while Warwick Smith failed to find the words to express his disappointment.

Vice-skip Ewan MacDonald echoed Murdoch's views while team officials will view this as Britain's final chance to add to Shelley Rudman's skeleton silver last week.

"We need to put this to bed now and move on," said MacDonald. "Maybe we'll have more of a go in the next match but we'll certainly be up for a medal.

"We'll have a good positive chat and a team debrief and look at what went wrong. It certainly will not be a problem to get motivated."

Elsewhere, British short track skater John Eley advanced into the 500m quarter-finals last night as one of the fastest qualifiers.