By Hritika Sharma
BEIJING (Reuters) – Reigning champions United States knocked off world number one side Britain in the men’s curling at the National Aquatics Centre on Friday while favourites Sweden stormed to the top of the standings with a perfect start to their round-robin campaign.
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.
“John (Shuster, U.S. skip) 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 are top of 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 single-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.
Teams will play nine matches in the round-robin stage, which continues later on Friday, with the top four advancing to the semi-finals next week.
The women’s group stage also continues later in the day, with Pyeongchang 2018 runners-up South Korea and bronze medallists Japan in action against Canada and Britain.
(Reporting by Hritika Sharma; editing by Richard Pullin)
