British men crash out after ‘sore’ Swiss loss

GREAT Britain’s men’s curling team rued missed opportunities after crashing out of the Winter Olympics with a 9-5 play-off loss to Switzerland.

Victory was needed to advance to a semi-final bout with Sweden this evening, and Kyle Smith’s rink began well, only for the Swiss to claim the ninth end 5-0 and take an unassailable advantage.

The result means Smith, his brother Cammy, Kyle Waddell and Thomas Muirhead will finish fifth.

“We gave it our best shot but that’s the dream over,” the British skip said.

“We started off very strong and we put ourselves in a great position and a couple of missed shots were the difference in the game.

“They are a good aggressive team and, when they make a lot of shots, it is hard to defend against.

“It’s a sore one. We gave ourselves the chance of making the semi-finals but we couldn’t make it happen.”

Britain had chances in the contest against a team they had beaten in the round-robin phase.

Kyle Smith’s perfectly-weighted final stone on the eighth end gave Britain a 5-4 advantage with two ends remaining.

However, Switzerland scored a remarkable five in the ninth end as skip Benoit Schwarz sent his final stone through two guards to dislodge another British stone for an astonishing turnaround.

British men’s coach Viktor Kjell said: “We are very disappointed and I thought we were the better team the whole game but they stepped it up.

“I just don’t know what happened in that ninth end.

“We missed four or five shots in a row and you cannot afford to do that at this level.

“I thought we’d almost got away with it and then he plays a pistol shot and walks away with a five.”

Kyle Smith added: “I’ll take a lot from the experience coming to the Olympic Games with my best friends and my brother — that’s something you dream of as a boy.

“There are lots of positives to take from this.”

THE United States won a dramatic penalty shootout in the women’s final to strike gold and end Canada’s Winter Olympics ice hockey reign in PyeongChang.

USA took the lead in the first period through Hilary Knight.

However, Canada, chasing a fifth consecutive Olympic gold, turned it around in the second period drawing level through Haley Irwin before Marie-Philip Poulin fired them ahead.

Monique Lamoureux-Morando levelled it up at 2-2 in the third period for the USA and the final went to sudden death overtime where the teams could not be separated.

It was 2-2 after five penalty shots each, extending the drama to sudden death. The USA’s Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson converted her effort and Meghan Agosta could not beat USA keeper Maddie Rooney, sparking wild American celebrations.