Britain’s curlers guarantee a medal as Mouat holds his nerve against Swiss

Team GB men’s team edge tense semi-final battle 8-5

They go for gold in Saturday’s final against Canada

Call it the Cortina Comeback. At nine o’clock on Thursday morning, Great Britain’s men’s curling team didn’t even know whether they would be in the Olympic semi-finals. By nine o’clock on Thursday night, they had won themselves a place in Saturday’s final against Canada by beating the undefeated Swiss team 8-5.

The British, who only scraped through the round robin because the Italian team lost their last group stage game to the Swiss on Thursday morning, had promised that they would be an entirely different proposition if they got to the knockout rounds, and they were as good as their word.

“An emotional rollercoaster is probably the way to describe this whole week, never mind just that game,” said Hammy McMillan. “I guess I’m still in a little bit of shock, because we had to really fight extremely hard in that game. We started off pretty slow and the Swiss guys really took advantage of that.”