Mouat's men claim first medal of Games with curling silver

Curling 19 Feb 22

Bruce Mouat took silver to open Team GB's account in Beijing after a tense and tactical men’s curling final, decided on an extra end, went the way of Sweden.

Mouat attempted a difficult shot to give Great Britain a chance to steal for the win but his final stone narrowly missed its target leaving Sweden with a 5-4 triumph as world champion Niklas Edin finally added Olympic gold to his collection.

Mouat and Edin’s rivalry dominates their sport, Edin starting this match with a narrow 12-10 advantage in the head-to-head standings.

The Swede won his fifth world title against Mouat’s rink in Calgary last year but the British skip has had his measure since.

Mouat beat Edin twice on his way to the European title in Norway last year and edged their round robin game here in Beijing.

However, the 36-year old Swede’s experience proved decisive as he completed his set of Olympic medals, after silver in PyeongChang and bronze in Sochi.

"Niklas has had such an impressive career and he's one of the best in curling history, he's an example of what we can do in four years time," said skip Mouat.

"We just need to get to that point again but make the result different."

Mouat was disappointed to miss out on topping the podium but revealed his pride at the displays of his British rink, including Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie and Hammy McMillan Jr, who have been the form team at the Olympics, winning eight straight games before this final.

He said: "We've been preparing for this for about five years and this is the moment we were hoping to have that win, so we're very disappointed.

"But it was a great week from us. We played really well throughout the tournament. We were hoping to have that performance today. It was pretty close but we gave them too much of a head start.

"I think in the last half we were in control, more so than them, but we gave them too much of a head start at the start and we had to battle back. We were trying really hard for that two in the tenth end."

They were looking to go one better than coach David Murdoch’s silver eight years ago in Sochi but were edged out by the barest of margins.

And vice skip Grant Hardie added: "We're still very proud of winning silver, particularly how we played all week.

"But at the moment the overriding emotion is disappointment that we didn't bring home the gold for everyone."

It was tight and high-quality game, with both sides look to force each other into mistakes, Sweden stealing a shot in the third end and Great Britain nicking it back in the seventh.

Mouat played a pressure draw to force an extra end but Sweden had the crucial advantage of the hammer - the final stone - and they made it count.

Mouat's silver is Team GB's first medal at Beijing 2022 while women's skip Eve Muirhead will also go for gold against Japan on Sunday.