Eve Muirhead stuns Canada to steer GB women into curling semi-finals

Britain’s women curling team are within touching distance of a Winter Olympics medal after beating the favourites Canada to qualify for Friday’s semi-final against Sweden.

Eve Muirhead, who skipped the team to a bronze medal in 2014, scored two points on the final end to secure a surprise 6-5 victory.

“It was a great team performance,” Muirhead said. “It shows we have a lot of determination, a lot of patience and I’m really delighted to get the semi-final spot. As a team, we love playing under the pressure. You thrive under that. When you’re on the ice, you don’t think of anything else.”

The result means it will be the first time in Olympic curling history that Canada, who won gold at last year’s world championships without losing a game, will not have finished in the top three.

“As a team I think we played really well,” Muirhead said. “Everyone is communicating great. The last few games we’ve got better and better and that’s important building into the play-offs.”

Glenn Howard predicted more was to come. “The last five ends of that game were by far the best five ends we’ve played this week,” GB’s Canadian coach said. “That’s what I want to see. The girls were out there to win it.”

Britain’s men will have to beat Switzerland in a play-off to make the final four after being crushed 10-4 by the USA, with the winners going on to play Sweden in the semi-finals.

The GB skip, Kyle Smith, said: “We struggled to create anything. We got a couple of fortunate steals but we didn’t make enough of the simple shots and gave away a few simple twos and threes.”

Britain’s Billy Morgan qualified for the big air final on Saturday after a thrilling second jump scored 90.50, securing him the sixth and final qualification place in heat two.

The 28-year-old, who was a major doubt after injuring his knee in December, was delighted with his performance. “I had to dig deep and I did. Basically it meant I needed to get the highest score I could for a back triple.

“The standard is mental, everyone has been killing it. I will need a lot of luck after seeing what’s going on. Watching practice it has been mental but anything can happen and I will try my best.”

Morgan’s preparations had been interrupted by problems with his ear. “I woke up this morning with a completely blocked ear and I had to go have it syringed,” he said. “I was panicked, I just felt terrible.

“With your ear blocked it’s a horrible feeling and I wouldn’t have felt too comfortable going in and doing this not feeling great. When I got here I was still feeling a bit dizzy but I think the adrenaline kicked in and took over and I was all right.”

Britain’s two other big air snowboarders, Rowan Coultas and Jamie Nicholls, missed out on the final after scoring 84.50 and 81.25 points respectively.

The 20-year-old Coultas, who is seen as one of Britain’s best hopes for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, said: “I’m feeling amazing, I’m so stoked to land those runs. It went to plan, I managed to smash training and get it a few times.

“I’d never done the trick in a competition before so maybe that’s why I’m so stoked.

Nicholls said:“My first run I felt a little nervous. Obviously being the first male snowboarder to drop in to the first big air at the Olympics, it was scary.”

The 24-year-old added: “I was stood up there for a while, the crowds were cheering and going for it and I was just stood up there and I was quiet.”