Bronze Defeat for Curlers

Great Britain were left without an Olympic curling medal after a disappointing 8-6 bronze play-off defeat to the United States at Pinerolo.
David Murdoch’s team never recovered from American skip Pete Fenson’s dramatic double take-out in the third end to score three and put his team 4-1 ahead.

And a missed draw by Murdoch in the sixth which allowed Fenson to score two more left Great Britain needing a miracle to claw themselves back into the game.
Murdoch responded with a last stone double take-out of his own in the seventh for a triple to claw the deficit back to 6-5, but the Americans retained that advantage going into the final end.

And despite the Britons’ best efforts to put in some blocks, Fenson kept his cool to draw in the last stone and spark celebrations among the sizeable contingent of American fans.

It was a sad end to a promising tournament for Great Britain, who had led the round-robin stage with six wins from their first seven matches before running into bad form.

And it was clear the British team, also including Ewan MacDonald, Euan Byers and Warwick Smith, had struggled to recover from Wednesday’s heart-wrenching last stone semi-final loss to Finland.