When curlers want snookers: Crew GB combat on at Winter Olympics after day of drama | Winter Olympics 2026

These are strained days on the curling area, the place the possibilities of the 2 British groups are teetering like a bus filled with bullion that’s backed over the lip of a cliff.

Each the women and men ended up ready the place they should win each recreation they play and hope different outcomes go their strategy to have any probability of constructing the semi-finals. Curling is likely one of the only a few sports activities left being contested on the Winter Olympics by which the British fancy their possibilities, and Crew GB’s hopes of getting anyplace close to their medal goal will activate the curl of the stones within the subsequent few days.

Dangle on a minute lads, anybody acquired a vivid concept? “Play higher,” the British skip Bruce Mouat advised his staff. The Brits had three matches between them on Wednesday. It began simply earlier than 9 within the morning with the primary instalment of a double invoice towards USA – the ladies, then the boys taking part in them – and was completed simply earlier than 9 within the night, with the conclusion of the ladies’s match towards Japan. Crew GB wanted to win all three of them, and so they did, in 12 hours of excruciating gradual‑mo sport, as tense because the seat of a skip’s pants as they slide down the ice to ship the hammer.

There have been some extraordinary moments in amongst it, the perfect of them Becky Morrison’s fifteenth, and really remaining stone, of the tenth finish towards USA. Morrison’s staff had been trailing 7-6, USA had the hammer and a stone sitting flush on the button. There was just one potential shot Morrison might play to avoid wasting the day, an unbelievable hit-and-roll which ricocheted off a stone sitting means out to the left, shot throughout the ice and knocked the USA stone off and stopped useless. It was a two-point swing, and the surprised USA staff had been nonetheless speaking about it hours later. Minnesota Fat couldn’t have labored the angles any higher.

“It’s up there with the perfect stones I’ve ever thrown, for certain, particularly contemplating the scenario,” Morrison mentioned. “Top-of-the-line stones I’ve ever seen,” her teammate Sophie Sinclair mentioned. Their third, Jen Dodds, mentioned: “What a strategy to end the sport. I’ve acquired a little bit of adrenaline going, as a result of it was so superb to look at. That could be a very excessive tariff shot. You’re aiming at a 3rd of the stone, and it’s means on the market on a line you don’t actually play usually, within the tenth finish of an Olympic Video games, to maintain your possibilities alive.”

And the enjoyable was solely simply starting. The British males beat USA 9-2 after simply six ends. The issue was they don’t simply have to win; they want the Norwegian and Italian groups to lose, too. Every time Mouat and his teammates weren’t centered solely on their very own recreation, they’d each eyes on what was taking place on rinks both facet. It was like the ultimate day of the Premier League, solely they had been taking part in all of the video games in the identical stadium.

When Britain had been two up towards USA, Norway had been trailing the Swiss by the identical margin, however Italy had been main Canada by three. Then when the British had been main by six, Canada had come again to at least one‑down of their match towards Italy, however swiftly the Norwegians had equalised with Switzerland. Someway on the finish of all of it, all the things fell the correct means. Canada got here again to beat Italy 8-3, and the Swiss pulled forward once more to beat Norway 10-4. Now, the British must spend Thursday morning watching whereas Norway play Canada, and Italy play Switzerland.

So long as certainly one of Norway or Italy lose, GB will undergo. And for those who adopted that right here’s a Rubik’s Dice so that you can do. “I’ll be actually refreshing my cellphone each 20 seconds,” mentioned Hammy McMillan, who might be following it from the athletes’ village.

The British girls might be again on the rink. They beat Japan 9-3 within the night, and now have to defeat Italy on Friday afternoon. Mouat, crawling ever so slowly in the direction of the again of that wobbling bus, says solely: “I’m truly oddly calm. I really feel like issues are going to go our means.”