Britain Clinch Win on Last Stone

Rhona Martin’s curlers secured their second successive victory in the round-robin competition today with a 5-4 win over Switzerland in a repeat of the 2002 final in Salt Lake City.

As with four years ago, the win was not sealed until the last stone, when Swiss Mirjam Ott sent her deciding shot long.

Afterwards, team third Jackie Lockhart, who had been one of the chief critics of the amount of time that Martin’s new-look team were given to get together in the run up to the Turin Games, insisted the controversy over team selection had been long forgotten.

"I think we are gelling faster than I expected," said Lockhart. "When you come to this sort of event you realize this is it and you’ve just got to make a bigger effort - we have and it’s great."

Britain’s new-look line-up includes two other regular skips in former world champion Lockhart and also Kelly Wood - but Lockhart insisted she was finding her new role to her liking.

"The pressure is off me and the enjoyment of being third is that you still get a chance to be at the head but also down the rink with the rest of the players. It helps because as skips we are all shot players but you have just got to stay within your role and not interfere unless you are asked, and that is what we are doing."

Martin’s team had struggled to wrest back their early initiative in another close encounter and Ott’s dramatic triple take-out to blank the ninth end looked like being the crucial shot.

But two costly mistakes by the Swiss in the decisive end gave Britain the notable scalp of last year’s European silver medalists and a second successive win.

Head coach Mike Hay said: "Going into the 10th end with the ice fairly straight you don’t really expect to win. But there was an unexpected miss by their third and Rhona took full advantage with a fantastic draw.

"We lost momentum midway through the game and the Dwiss played well but we showed character to take it on the chin and that was important for us."

Both Britain’s men’s and women’s teams had byes for the remainder of today’s sessions allowing them to prepare for a further step up in class on Wednesday.

Martin’s team will meet the red-hot favorites Sweden in the afternoon session while David Murdoch’s men - also on the back of two straight wins - face Canada and defending champions Norway.

Elsewhere, Weymouth biathlete Tom Clemens placed 79th in the men’s 10km while Noel Baxter stood 36th after the downhill portion of the combined with two slalom runs to come later this evening.