Great Britain’s men’s curling team beat Switzerland to reach Olympic final

Britain’s men’s curling team are guaranteed at least a silver medal after an 8-5 victory over Switzerland in the Olympic semi-final.

Bruce Mouat’s side had faced a nervous wait to see if they would make the semi-final cut, with Italy’s defeat at the hands of the Swiss on Thursday morning sealing Britain’s place in the line up.

When the two sides met in the round-robin stage, it took an extra end to separate them, with Switzerland prevailing but Britain had come out top at last year’s world championships.

In what was an incredibly tight match, a point steal in the sixth end for Britain changed the momentum, while a triple take out from Mouat in the seventh limited the Swiss to just one.

Two points in the eighth saw Britain edge in front for first time and another two-point score in the 10th sealed the win.

Britain will now face Canada in the gold medal match on Saturday evening, looking to upgrade the silver they won in Beijing four years ago.

Hammy McMillan Jr said: “We had to really fight extremely hard in that game. We started off pretty slow and the Swiss guys really took advantage of that.

“Then we regrouped at half-time, we spoke about the changing ice conditions and how we needed to pull the stone slightly different and how we adapted.

“We came out and I guess we got a little miss in the sixth end by Benoit (Schwarz-van Berkel) which gave us that steal of one in the sixth to I guess really flip the switch.

“Then Bruce played that absolutely incredible run back triple I guess, to save our bacon.”

Mouat felt his crucial shot in the seventh end, which prevented the Swiss team from scoring multiple points, would rank as one of the best of his career.

He said: “Definitely up there (as one of my best). I think one of the best shots in a pressured situation, definitely up there and one of the best I’ve ever played in a pressure cooker, I suppose.

“Just to make shots like that in a situation like we were in, it’s what dreams…or what I’ve dreamt of for a long, long time.

“To be able to do that for myself and for the guys, it felt like this is now our time to go and like push forward and go and win this game.”

Britain’s hopes had been left hanging by a thread following a defeat at the hands of Canada on Tuesday evening and Mouat admitted it had been a rollercoaster of emotions over the day.

He added: “Honestly, it was just the most incredible week. It’s not gone all our way and we knew that this morning we might not be playing again.

“So, so many emotions have happened today and it was a wee bit overwhelming in the moment to realise that we had won.

“He had that shot, that very tough shot to maybe only get one and when he missed it, it was just kind of like, you know, a wee bit of like, ‘holy bad word’, this is actually happening.

“I am so, very, very proud of us.”