Gb Curling Team Fall Short in Final as Mouat’s Semi Heroics Deliver Britain a Medal
The gb curling team advanced to the Olympic men’s final after a dramatic 8-5 semi-final victory over previously unbeaten Switzerland, guaranteeing Great Britain at least a silver medal. The progress mattered because the squad then contested the gold match against Canada but were beaten 9-6 after faltering in the closing ends, ending a bid for Britain’s first Olympic men’s curling gold since 1924.
Gb Curling Team's route to the semi-final
The British lineup — Bruce Mouat (skip), Hammy McMillan Jr (lead), Bobby Lammie (second), Grant Hardie (third/vice-skip) and Kyle Waddell (alternate) — reached the knockout phase despite a difficult round-robin. The first four had also represented Great Britain at the Beijing Games, while Waddell returned to the Olympic stage after eight years. Their round-robin record was five wins and four defeats; that narrow passage was made possible when the Italian team lost its last group-stage game to Switzerland on Thursday morning, which opened the path for Britain into the knockouts.
Bruce Mouat's decisive shot in the seventh end
The semi-final turned on a single, extraordinary moment: Mouat executed a run-back triple takeout in the seventh end that dramatically altered the scoreboard. The Swiss had been poised to score three and move into a 7-4 lead, but Mouat’s geometry of stones left them needing only a draw to pick up a solitary point. Mouat described the play as one of the best shots he has ever made and marked it with a brief fist pump; team-mate Hammy McMillan praised his consistency and shotmaking, saying the squad had full confidence in Mouat’s ability to finish games.
Semi-final 8-5 over Switzerland guarantees at least silver
The match itself was a study in momentum shifts. At nine o’clock on Thursday morning the British team did not know whether they would reach the semi-finals; by nine o’clock on Thursday night they had sealed their place in Saturday’s final. Britain stole an important point in the sixth end when Switzerland’s vice-skip missed a difficult hammer shot, Mouat’s seventh-end masterpiece followed, and Britain then scored two in the eighth to lead 6-5 going into the 10th. A further two-point score in the 10th completed the 8-5 win. Switzerland had entered the semis unbeaten after nine wins in the round-robin; their post-round-robin form had been credited in part to the arrival of Glenn Howard, the four-time world champion who serves as Swiss national coach and who came onto the ice during time-outs to advise his players. The atmosphere was electric, buoyed by a vocal band of Scottish supporters complete with bagpipes and even a kazoo.
Men's final: Canada wins 9-6, ending Britain’s bid for 1924 landmark
Having already guaranteed at least a silver and aiming to improve on their Beijing 2022 silver, the British team faced Canada in the final. Canada prevailed 9-6 after the final two stones of the match clinched the victory, leaving Great Britain to contemplate another near miss in men’s Olympic curling. The defeat closed Britain’s chance to be the first men’s curling gold medalists for the nation since 1924. The Canadian contingent, led in coverage by Brad Jacob, has also been at the centre of irregularity allegations around so-called “double-touching” of stones after release; those accusations, which have included the Canadian men’s and women’s teams and Mouat’s squad, prompted World Curling officials to increase on-ice umpiring during the tournament after a contentious Sweden–Canada match.
Wider Olympic context: halfpipe delay, medal counts and other results
The curling story sat amid other late Games developments. The women’s freestyle halfpipe final — where Zoe Atkin held a strong medal position — was postponed and rescheduled for Sunday at 09: 40 GMT, though earlier schedules had listed the final for Saturday. Observers asked whether Atkin might deliver a fifth medal for Great Britain on the closing days of competition. Organizers listed five gold medals as contested on the 16th and final day of the Olympics, even as some coverage referred to the day as the penultimate session. Norway’s Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo took his sixth gold in the 50km cross-country race while Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave finished sixth in that event. Britain’s Winter Games form had already featured a “Super Sunday” a week earlier, when Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale took mixed-team snowboard cross gold and Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker won skeleton gold. The best British Winter Olympic medal haul to date stands at five, with only one previous gold on the record.
Team members and peers voiced hope for the future. Ross Whyte, who was part of the silver-medal squad in 2022, described the current team as performing “amazingly” and urged them to play with their usual confidence. Former Olympic gold medallist Vicky Wright spoke of potential and longevity, drawing on Eve Muirhead’s fourth Olympic attempt in 2022 as an example of persistence bearing fruit. Coverage of the tournament included input from contributors Katie Stafford, Phil Cartwright and Josh Lobley.
What makes this notable is how a single shot — and a handful of ends — reshaped Britain’s path: Mouat’s precision in the semi-final directly produced a medal and set up a final that ultimately fell just short, underscoring how marginal gains decide curling at the highest level.
