Olympic Curling Update: Medals still possible for Brits

Curling / Mike Haggerty / 19 February 2010 / Leave a comment

The British women pictured on their way to a win over Russia

Mike Haggerty checks on the progress of the British teams going for medals in Vancouver and finds the women in better health than the men

"With the likes of Japan and struggling USA still to play, the British women still have every chance of featuring in the medal shake-down, but it’s Sweden (available at [5.5] to back) who look the strongest team in the competition."

With curling's round-robin section reaching the halfway mark, both of Britain's teams remain in contention to reach next weekend's medal games.

In what was a spectacular Olympic debut, 19-year-old women's skip Eve Muirhead took the scalps of reigning world champions China in her opening game, beating them by 5-4 after an extra end. Although the British women then went down by 4-6 to Sweden's defending Olympic champions, they performed strongly to outclass Russia in their next game, cruising to a 10-3 win in just eight ends. With the likes of Japan and struggling USA still to play, the British women still have every chance of featuring in the medal shake-down, but it's Sweden (available at [5.5] to back) who look the strongest team in the competition

David Murdoch's men are the current world champions but they have looked far from that stature more than once in this event. They stuttered to a 4-6 loss to Sweden in their opener before beating a French team that has struggled all week by 9-4. On Thursday their final stone was off-target by just half an inch as they went down to Switzerland by 3-4 before they bounced back with a last-stone 9-6 win over Denmark to rank fifth overall on the table.

Skip Murdoch has conceded that things aren't quite right in the British camp, as they approach a crucial Saturday when they face China and then high-flying Canada in a re-run of last year's world championship final.

"It's early in the week and obviously we don't want to suffer any more losses" he said, "but we've just got to hang on in there and try to play our game. We're still trying to find that top gear but hopefully that comes on Saturday".

Saturday's round-robin showdown against Canada's Kevin Martin has been keenly anticipated around Vancouver, and with Martin undefeated at the top of the rankings on four wins, the Canadians are quite rightly feeling confident. So far, the Canadian men have been head and shoulders above their opposition, for example scoring five in one end against France on Thursday evening as they cruised to an emphatic 12-5 win. They are deserved [1.65] favourites to win gold.

The formbook makes Canada the firm favourites to beat Britain on Saturday, but if the Brits can avoid further defeats elsewhere in the round-robin programme, they should be able to qualify for the semi-finals. The problem is, if they do, they seem liable to scrape in ranking fourth which will likely bring them back together with Canada at that stage and deny curling fans the final re-match that they all want to see.

But Murdoch's men have a reputation for stepping up to the mark when the chips are really down, so a gold is still not beyond them.

Tags: Canada, Curling, David Murdoch, Eve Muirhead, Kevin Martin