McCreadie calls for 'cup final' mentality

BRITISH skip Michael McCreadie believes his wheelchair curlers must treat their remaining games like FA Cup finals if they are to reach the Paralympic Winter Games semi-finals this week.

The British quartet of Angie Malone, Tom Killin, McCreadie and Aileen Neilson staged a stirring comeback from 5-0 down to force extra ends against the United States on Monday night, only to lose 8-7 in the ninth end.

It was Britain's fourth loss in five starts in the round-robin tournament at the Vancouver Paralympic Centre, having lost 7-4 to Korea earlier in the day.

With one win and only four games remaining, McCreadie recognised his team has a struggle to make up the gap between Britain and the teams occupying the top four qualifying places. "Every game now is like an FA Cup final. We need to bring our A game right away and follow that through right to the end of the competition and hopefully into a semi-final spot."

McCreadie is competing in his seventh Games having also participated in wheelchair basketball and was set to celebrate his 64th birthday on Tuesday wanting just one present. "A victory would be the best present I could have," the Glaswegian said.

Despite the defeat, both he and Neilson were in confident mood heading into their must-win game with Germany last night.

"We're going to take the positives from it," Neilson said. "We really fought back, we dug deep and it shows that although we're down we're never out.

"We came back, took it to an extra end and we believe in ourselves so we can play big shots when we have to."

In the other curling games, defending champions Canada lost their unbeaten record with an 8-4 defeat to Sweden, Switzerland beat Germany 9-3 and Norway beat Korea 9-6.

Canadian cross-country skier Brian McKeever eased a little of the pain of missing out on Winter Olympics action when he won his country's first gold of the 2010 Paralympic Games.

McKeever, 30, was set to become the first man to ski in both the Paralympic and Olympic Games when he qualified for the Canadian squad but he was left out of the starting line-up for the final skiing event, the 50km cross-country.

McKeever, who is legally blind with just 10 per cent vision as a result of suffering from Stargardt's disease, switched his attention back to Paralympic competition and on his return to Whistler and with his brother Robin guiding, he won the Men's 20km for the visually impaired.

"It makes it a lot easier," Brian McKeever said. "We're never going to forget what happened but we're moving on."

Canada also won gold at Whistler Creekside, where Lauren Woolstencroft finished first in the women's standing Slalom.