Olympics-Curling-Clinical U.S. edge Britain, perfect Sweden top men's standings

[February 11, 2022] By Hritika Sharma

BEIJING (Reuters) -Reigning champions the United States beat world number one side Britain in the men's curling, while favourites Sweden stormed to the top of the standings with a perfect start to their round-robin campaign at the National Aquatics Centre on Friday.

The British rink, led by Bruce Mouat, fought back from an early 5-2 deficit but the Americans took the decisive lead in a clinical penultimate end to emerge 9-7 winners.

"(U.S. skip) John (Shuster) and his team have got a lot of experience here. They know how to win games," Mouat said. "You can't give them any freebies and that's what we were doing today."

World champions Sweden eased to a 9-3 win over Italy and lead the round-robin standings, having won all three of their games so far. The Italians conceded with two ends remaining after Swedish skip Niklas Edin made an open draw for three.

"We felt no pressure in that moment," Edin said. "I feel so far that it's been a pretty much perfect start... If we don't make any big mistakes the game is basically already over.
 

"So we're just playing the scoreboard and not trying to lose our heads out there, just trying to be precise."

Switzerland played out a fairly defensive 6-3 victory over the Russian Olympic Committee, grabbing three points in the eighth end after both teams had blanked the previous two.

China claimed their first win of the campaign after carrying a one-point lead into the last end when Denmark skip Mikkel Krause accidentally threw his final draw through the house to leave the hosts with an open hit to pick up a 5-4 victory.

Vice Christopher Plys of the United States and Matt Hamilton of the United States in action. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez

In the women's competition, South Korea's "Garlic Girls" bounced back from their opening night loss against Canada to topple European champions Britain 9-7 after the British quartet conceded four in the penultimate end when leading by one.

Canada skip Jennifer Jones suffered her first career loss at the Games as they fell 8-5 to Japan. Jones, 47, went through the 2014 Olympic campaign in Sochi to win gold and led her team to a 12-7 victory over South Korea in their opening game in Beijing.

Tabitha Peterson's U.S. rink followed up dominant wins against the Russian Olympic Committee and Denmark with an 8-4 triumph over hosts China, while Switzerland edged ROC 8-7 to keep their perfect record intact.

Teams play nine matches in the round-robin stage, with the top four advancing to the semi-finals next week.

The men's competition continues later on Friday.

(Reporting by Hritika Sharma; editing by Richard Pullin and Ken Ferris)

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