Courier Country bowlers to face each other in World Mixed Pairs final.

Perthshire curlers Kyle Smith and Eve Muirhead both tasted preolympic defeats yesterday in their final tournaments before next month’s Winter Games.

Smith was the runner-up at last year’s German Masters but looked ready to go one better in Hamburg when he thrashed German Alex Baumann 6-1 in the semis.

The Scot had won all six matches en route to the final, whereas Swiss skip Marc Pfister scraped through his group despite losing two games. Smith led 2-0 after five ends but then conceded a three at the sixth and had to battle to take the final to an extra end where Pfister held his nerve to win 4-3.

“We just came up a wee bit short in the final,” admitted Smith. “But that’s two finals we’ve made in our last four competitions, which is good for our confidence going forward.”

At Glasgow’s Braehead Arena, Muirhead saw her Glynhill International title ripped from her grasp in yesterday’s semi-finals.

The European champion topped Pool A with four straight wins and then pipped Lockerbie’s Hannah Fleming 5-4 in the quarter-finals, but Switzerland’s double world champion Binia Feltscher also had a perfect 100% record and blitzed Muirhead in the last four.

It was still close going to the fifth end where the 2013 Glynhill champion counted four stones to open up an unassailable 6-1 lead.

Muirhead eventually lost 8-1 but won’t face Feltscher again at the Olympics after Silvana Tirinzoni won the Swiss trials.

Kyle Smith: beaten in final.