Great Britain, Sweden play for Olympic curling gold for men – Beijing 2022
Photo: Canadian Press
The British have won their first medal in the Beijing Games, thanks to Bruce Mouat and the men’s curling team.
Four Scottish guys beat the American defending Olympic champions 8-4 in the semifinals on Thursday night to not win worse than a silver medal and earn the right to play Sweden for the gold.
Although Scotland is the birthplace of curling and the sport is still a national passion, the British have not won men’s gold – and have only won two medals of any color – since the sport returned to the 1998 Winter Games.
“There will be some partying at home if we do,” said British leader Hammy McMillan. “It would mean the absolute world to everyone if we did.”
The Swedes topped Canada 5-3 in the second semifinal at the Ice Cube curling arena. Skip Niklas Edin will have a chance to complete his set of Olympic medals, after winning bronze in Sochi and a silver in Pyeongchang.
“It’s going to be a super, super interesting final,” Edin said. “I think it can be nerve-wracking to play, but I think it will be a super well-played game.”
John Shuster, who won bronze in 2006 and gold four years ago – the only Olympic curling medals in US history – will skip the Americans in third place against Canada.
“I learned a lot in Turin back in 2006, because you have this huge disappointment. And then, you know, it’s really easy to just let that disappointment linger,” he said.
“But you know what we just have to realize is that we have the opportunity to come back here and stand on an Olympic podium and win an Olympic medal for the United States,” Shuster said. “And I think we’ll do it – I know we’ll be ready to come out tomorrow and play and do it.”
After 5-4 at the five-final break, the Americans deliberately extinguished three straight ends to retain control of the last stone’s advantage, known as the hammer. They would have liked to have done it again in the ninth end, but Great Britain put them in, and Shuster deliberately threw away his last stone – and dropped a point to keep the hammer in the 10th, after 6-4.
In the end, Mouat Shuster left no good alternative for his last stone, and in desperation he ended up knocking off all the red stones in the points area to leave two British yellows.
– We lost to a team that played better. That’s the long and the short of it, said other US Matt Hamilton. “There’s nothing you can really say or sugar coat it.”
Sweden also played for the big close and extinguished the sixth and seventh in a 3-3 match before Canada was forced to take a single point in the eighth. Then Canada took a deliberate zero and went into the 10th disadvantage with 4-3.
But Brad Gushue’s last stone in the 10th was inches away from the center of the goal, allowing Edin – a five-time world champion and two-time Olympic medalist – to steal one.