Gb Curling Team Falls 9-6 to Canada After Dramatic Semi-final Comeback

The Gb Curling Team reached Saturday's gold-medal match at the Winter Olympics after a tense 8-5 semi-final victory over Switzerland but were beaten 9-6 by Canada after faltering in the final ends. The result denied Britain a first Olympic men's curling gold since 1924 and capped a day of decisive finishes across Milan and Cortina.

Gb Curling Team semi-final: 8-5 win over Switzerland

Great Britain advanced to the final with an 8-5 victory over an undefeated Swiss side in a game that turned between the sixth and seventh ends. The British stole the sixth end when Switzerland's vice skip missed a hammer shot, and Bruce Mouat produced an improbable seventh-end "run back triple takeout" that prevented the Swiss from scoring three and instead left them scrambling for a single. Britain then scored two in the next end to lead 6-5 going into the 10th, sealing the 8-5 win that guaranteed at least a silver medal.

Bruce Mouat and the pivotal shot that swung momentum

Mouat celebrated the seventh-end shot with a fist pump; teammates described it as one of the best shots of his career. Hammy McMillan praised Mouat's recent form, noting he has been extraordinary over the last 18 months and that the team had "100% confidence" in his finishing ability. That single moment shifted the match's trajectory and helped overturn a contest that Britain had started slowly.

Road to the knockout: round-robin squeeze and late qualification

The British route to the semi-finals was narrow. Mouat's squad reached the knockout stage after scraping through the round robin with five wins and four defeats, advancing only because Italy lost its final group game to Switzerland on Thursday morning. At nine o'clock on Thursday morning Great Britain did not know if they would make the semi-finals; by nine o'clock on Thursday night they had secured a place in the Saturday final—an overnight turnaround that players described as an "emotional rollercoaster. " Kyle Waddell rejoined the Olympic squad after an eight-year absence, while the first four—Mouat, Hammy McMillan Jr, Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie—had also been the Beijing 2022 team that won silver.

Final in Milan-Cortina: Canada clinches gold, 9-6

In the title match Britain fell short, losing 9-6 after faltering in the final ends when the last stones decided the outcome in Canada's favour. The defeat means the British men's team will not claim the first Olympic curling gold for Great Britain since 1924. Observers noted the last two stones of the match clinched gold for Canada and left Britain contemplating another near miss on the sport's biggest stage.

Controversy, coaching and rivalries: Canada, Schwaller and Glenn Howard

The tournament has been shadowed by dispute elsewhere about alleged "double-touching" of stones involving Canadian teams and others, prompting World Curling officials to increase umpiring. Britain met a Canada squad led by Brad Jacob in the final. Britain's semi-final opposition had been built into an unbeaten machine under the guidance of Glenn Howard, the four-time world champion who joined Switzerland as national coach. Bruce Mouat's long rivalry with Swiss skip Yannick Schwaller runs deep; Mouat led their head-to-head 22-10 coming into the semi-final.

Broader Winter Games context: medals, halfpipe and standout performances

The men's curling outcome sits amid a busy final weekend for Britain. Freestyle skier Zoe Atkin, top of the halfpipe leaderboard, faces a postponed women's halfpipe final scheduled for Sunday at 09: 40 GMT and is a strong medal chance. The Games have already featured standout British moments: the week after "Super Sunday" saw Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale share gold in mixed team snowboard cross, and Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker each win gold in skeleton. Norway's Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo won a sixth gold in the 50km cross-country race, while Britain's Andrew Musgrave finished sixth in that event. Britain’s best-ever Winter Olympics haul remains five medals overall, with only one previous gold in the nation's history.

Ross Whyte, part of the 2022 silver-medal squad, expressed optimism about the current crop and urged them to "play like they normally do, " while former Olympic gold medallist Vicky Wright reflected on the potential ahead and referenced the persistence of athletes like Eve Muirhead, who had her fourth attempt at Olympic gold in 2022 and ultimately achieved the goal. What makes this notable is how a narrow escape from the round robin and one extraordinary shot in a semi-final combined to carry Britain to the final, yet the final ends exposed the fine margins that still separate them from Olympic gold.