Winter Olympics: Stone of destiny out of British hands

Published on Sunday 21 February 2010 23:29

GREAT Britain's women's curling skip Eve Muirhead insisted her Olympic dream was not over yet despite her team going down to a third round-robin defeat in a row at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.

Britain suffered their fourth loss of the Games to leave themselves an uphill struggle to qualify for the semi-finals. They were beaten 10-6 by Switzerland, the British conceding the game after nine ends and with two games left in their round-robin schedule and a 3-4 record, they are now relying on their rivals to slip up.

It was a third loss on the bounce for GB after dispiriting defeats to Japan on Friday and the United States on Saturday. The latter defeat was particularly hard to take as Muirhead lost form at the crucial stage and allowed the unimpressive Americans to force an extra end and then steal for a 6-5 victory.

Yesterday a Muirhead mistake in the fourth end allowed the Swiss to score four points and open up an 8-1 lead before the British rallied to make a game of it in the latter stages. The all-Scottish quartet of Muirhead, Jackie Lockhart, Kelly Wood and Lorna Evers next face Denmark today before playing the as yet unbeaten gold-medal favourite host nation Canada tomorrow.

"It's going to be tough to get back from that but we have to move on and try to perform the way we know we can, like in the second half of that game," Muirhead said. "I don't think we're down and out of yet. We've got to make sure we win our two games and rely on other results and see what happens."

Britain got off to a bad start against the reigning Olympic silver medallists as the Swiss, skipped by Mirjam Ott, took a 2-0 lead in the first end, Muirhead's last stone having failed to dislodge her rival's rock and then Ott sending another scoring stone into the house with the final stone, or hammer. The British women could only score one point in reply in the second end before passing back the hammer to the Swiss, who tacked on two more in the third. The biggest blow, though, came in the fourth end when Ott delivered a double takeout and added her stone to three others already in a scoring position.

Much to her frustration, the Blair Atholl 19-year-old's draw into the house with her hammer was too light and the Swiss stole four more points to take a commanding 8-1 lead. "Normally Eve will play the pressure shots and it wasn't like her," British team coach Nancy Murdoch said, while Muirhead added: "That was a crucial shot and coming up short wasn't ideal so that let us down there. There were a lot of slack shots the first few ends, which didn't help. We came onto our game in the latter half but too little, too late."

The young skip regained her composure sufficiently to add points in the fifth end to leave her team trailing 8-2 at halfway but Ott delivered another point for the Swiss in the sixth to leave a seven-point deficit at 9-2 with four ends left to play. There was some hope for the British cause in the seventh when Ott's final stone went through the house instead of scoring inside two GB stones and when Muirhead sent down the hammer into the house it gave her three points and a lifeline in the contest at 9-5. The Swiss skip made another error with her hammer in the eighth, taking out one British stone but leaving another in a scoring position for a steal to close the gap to 9-6.

Ott gave Muirhead another chance in the ninth end when her penultimate stone left Britain closest to the button but the skip was too light with her final stone and when the Swiss skip sent down the hammer to gain a point for a 10-6 lead, Britain conceded the game.

"It was asking a lot of ourselves to comeback and we did the best we could out there to get back but far too many slack shots at the start of the game and that really let us down out there," Muirhead said.

&#149 David Murdoch's Great Britain men's team was playing the United States late last night hoping to improve their record to four wins and three defeats and keep their semi-final dream alive. The men complete their round-robin campaign with matches against Germany and Norway, both of which take place tomorrow.