Try Curling: Britain Falls 9-6 to Canada as Mouat’s Side Had Stormed Through 8-5 Semi
Great Britain’s men’s curling team were beaten 9-6 by Canada in the Olympic gold medal match, ending their bid to claim a first men’s curling Olympic title since 1924. Try Curling has become shorthand for the British run this week, which included an 8-5 semi-final victory over previously undefeated Switzerland and a run of dramatic, tightly fought ends that guaranteed Team GB at least a silver medal.
Try Curling: Mouat’s run back triple takeout in the 8-5 semi-final
Bruce Mouat produced the defining moment in the semi-final against Switzerland with an extraordinary seventh-end shot described as a “run back triple takeout. ” The sequence transformed a situation in which Switzerland expected at least three points into one where they needed a draw to score a single point. Britain then scored two in the following end to lead 6-5 going into the 10th, and the match finished 8-5.
Canada v Great Britain: 9-6 gold match and the endgame wobble
In the final, Great Britain lost 9-6 after faltering in the closing ends, surrendering the gold to Canada. The British squad had been aiming to lift a first men’s Olympic curling gold since 1924 and had improved on their silver from Beijing in 2022 when they reached the gold match. The loss leaves them with silver; they had been guaranteed at least that medal by reaching the final.
Team make-up: Mouat, Hammy McMillan Jr, Bobby Lammie, Grant Hardie and Kyle Waddell
The British team on the ice comprised Bruce Mouat as skip, Hammy McMillan Jr as lead, Bobby Lammie as second and Grant Hardie as third and vice-skip, with Kyle Waddell serving as alternate. The first four were also the Beijing quartet, while Waddell returned to the Olympic stage for the first time in eight years. Their route to the knockout rounds had been narrow: five wins and four defeats in the round-robin left them scraping through, helped by Italy’s final-group defeat to Switzerland.
World Curling, Brad Jacob and double-touching controversy
The tournament has been overshadowed by allegations surrounding “double-touching” of stones after release. Canada’s men’s and women’s teams, and Mouat’s squad, were named in those claims. The dispute intensified after a heated Sweden–Canada match and prompted World Curling officials to increase the level of umpiring for the event. Canada at the centre of the controversy was led in the coverage by Brad Jacob.
Semi-final rivalry: Mouat, Yannick Schwaller, Glenn Howard and head-to-head history
Mouat and Swiss skip Yannick Schwaller share a long-running rivalry that dates back to world junior championships a decade earlier. Schwaller won their early encounters, but Mouat had dominated in recent years, holding a 22-10 advantage in head-to-head meetings coming into the semi, including four straight wins. Britain also beat Switzerland 5-4 in last April’s world championship final. The Swiss had bolstered their squad with Canadian coach Glenn Howard, a four-time world champion, who was on the side of the ice during a timeout attempting to guide his team through the closing shots.
Other Olympic moments: Zoe Atkin, halfpipe scheduling and cross-country headlines
Across the final phase of the Games, freestyle skier Zoe Atkin has been positioned as a strong British medal chance in the women’s halfpipe final. The provided context gives conflicting information on scheduling: one account has the halfpipe final taking place on Saturday, while another states the women’s halfpipe final was postponed until Sunday at 09: 40 GMT; this scheduling is unclear in the provided context. The wider programme included five gold medals listed as up for grabs on the 16th and final day of the Games, and coverage described the event as the penultimate day in some summaries.
Other podium moments in the competition included Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo winning a sixth gold in the 50km cross-country race, with Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave finishing sixth in that event. Britain’s recent run of podiums was framed against a historical best: the best Winter Olympics medal haul for Britain currently stands at five, with only one gold ever previously won. The Games also featured a “Super Sunday” a week earlier when Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale won gold in mixed team snowboard cross, followed by golds for Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker in skeleton.
Team reactions blended relief and stunned joy. Hammy McMillan described the semi-final as an “emotional rollercoaster, ” noting the squad had to fight hard after a slow start, and Ross Whyte urged the current side to play as they normally do and praised their prospects. Vicky Wright, an Olympic gold medallist curler, said she hoped the men would keep going and added that more experience could help them finally claim that long-awaited gold.
What makes this notable is the juxtaposition of a historic near-miss in the final with moments of technical brilliance and off-ice controversy, leaving Britain with a guaranteed place on the podium but also questions about officiating and scheduling that remain unresolved in the available accounts.
