Team GB men win thrilling curling semi-final to guarantee Winter Olympic medal

Britain's athletes celebrate after winning the men's curling semifinal match against the United States at the Beijing Winter Olympics Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Rhona Martin was the first to hug Bruce Mouat and his history boys after they secured at least Olympic silver and a shot at emulating the Stone of Destiny.

Curling fate is knocking at the door of Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan and now it comes against Sweden in Saturday’s gold medal match.

A topsy-turvy 8-4 triumph over USA guaranteed Team GB a medal and ensured, 90 hours before the end of the Games, that Britain won’t come home from Beijing empty-handed.

But these four want more - the chance to turn Britain’s fifth Olympic curling medal into a first gold since Martin's magical moment in 2002.

“We have the chance to emulate Rhona and that’s such a big moment for curling back home,” said an emotional Mouat.

“We really want to be able to replicate something like that. If we go out and play the game we've played all of this week, we'll be close to being able to have a moment like that.”

The Scots secured Britain’s first curling medal since silver at Sochi 2014 - won by David Murdoch, who watched on proudly from the bench as head coach.

It was the eighth successive victory of an outstanding debut Olympics for the quartet.

“It's something we dreamed of back when we put the team together in 2017,” said McMillan.“This is what we wanted out of the four years. To be in the final and have a chance of winning a gold is everything we worked for.”

The early exchanges of the semi-final were frenetic and high-scoring as Britain scored three in the third end, either side of scores of two from USA veteran John Shuster.

Mouat’s men led 5-4 at the halfway stage and the dynamic of the game totally changed after the break with the next three ends all blanked.

Two sloppy shots from American third Chris Plys reopened the door and a clutch draw shot from Mouat allowed Britain to score one in the penultimate end that sealed the victory.

Mouat, who narrowly missed out on a mixed doubles medal alongside Jennifer Dodds, let out a mighty roar in his winning moment.

“It was just such a release of tension and pressure,” said Mouat. “I think people in Scotland might have heard it!“To be so close last week, it’s been a rollercoaster for me. I'm so happy with how I bounced back from that moment and it was from the support of my team.

“They all text me as soon as that happened. I went around to see them, and said we've got a great opportunity, we're playing really well.

“I didn't want to let that affect what we had potentially coming up this week and it hasn’t.”

The quartet's focus now turns to the golden game against Niklas Edin's Sweden, pitting the best two rinks in the world against each other with it all on the line.

“As soon as we got into this team I just knew that we had something golden and hopefully we do get that golden moment on Saturday,” said Mouat.

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