These are strained days at the curling arena, where the chances of the two British teams are teetering like a bus full of bullion that’s backed over the lip of a cliff.
Both the men and women ended up in a position where they need to win every game they play and hope other results go their way to have any chance of making the semi-finals. Curling is one of the very few sports left being contested at the Winter Olympics in which the British fancy their chances, and Team GB’s hopes of getting anywhere near their medal target will turn on the curl of the stones in the next few days.
Hang on a minute lads, anyone got a bright idea? “Play better,” the British skip Bruce Mouat told his team. The Brits had three matches between them on Wednesday. It started just before nine in the morning with the first instalment of a double bill against USA – the women, then the men playing them – and was finished just before nine in the evening, with the conclusion of the women’s match against Japan. Team GB needed to win all three of them, and they did, in 12 hours of excruciating slow‑mo sport, as tense as the seat of a skip’s pants as they slide down the ice to deliver the hammer.
There were some extraordinary moments in among it, the best of them Becky Morrison’s 15th, and very final stone, of the 10th end against USA. Morrison’s team were trailing 7-6, USA had the hammer and a stone sitting flush on the button. There was only one possible shot Morrison could play to save the day, an improbable hit-and-roll which ricocheted off a stone sitting way out to the left, shot across the ice and knocked the USA stone off and stopped dead. It was a two-point swing, and the stunned USA team were still talking about it hours later. Minnesota Fats couldn’t have worked the angles any better.
“It’s up there with the best stones I’ve ever thrown, for sure, especially considering the situation,” Morrison said. “One of the best stones I’ve ever seen,” her teammate Sophie Sinclair said. Their third, Jen Dodds, said: “What a way to finish the game. I’ve got a bit of adrenaline going, because it was so amazing to watch. That is a very high tariff shot. You’re aiming at a third of the stone, and it’s way out there on a line you don’t really play often, in the 10th end of an Olympic Games, to keep your chances alive.”
And the fun was only just beginning. The British men beat USA 9-2 after just six ends. The problem was they don’t just need to win; they need the Norwegian and Italian teams to lose, too. Whenever Mouat and his teammates weren’t focused entirely on their own game, they had both eyes on what was happening on rinks either side. It was like the final day of the Premier League, only they were playing all the games in the same stadium.
When Britain were two up against USA, Norway were trailing the Swiss by the same margin, but Italy were leading Canada by three. Then when the British were leading by six, Canada had come back to one‑down in their match against Italy, but all of a sudden the Norwegians had equalised with Switzerland. Somehow at the end of it all, everything fell the right way. Canada came back to beat Italy 8-3, and the Swiss pulled ahead again to beat Norway 10-4. Now, the British have to spend Thursday morning watching while Norway play Canada, and Italy play Switzerland.
As long as one of Norway or Italy lose, GB will go through. And if you followed that here’s a Rubik’s Cube for you to do. “I’ll be literally refreshing my phone every 20 seconds,” said Hammy McMillan, who will be following it from the athletes’ village.
The British women will be back at the rink. They beat Japan 9-3 in the evening, and now need to defeat Italy on Friday afternoon. Mouat, crawling ever so slowly towards the back of that wobbling bus, says only: “I’m actually oddly calm. I feel like things are going to go our way.”
