Switzerland break Great Britain’s round robin winning streak at Olympic Winter Games

With just two more round-robin sessions to go, table-toppers Great Britain remain the only team already qualified for the semi-finals. However, as an indication of just how tight this mixed doubles competition is, they experienced their first defeat in Sunday afternoon’s eleventh session — a 7-6 loss to Switzerland.

In this game, Switzerland found themselves 4-0 ahead after three ends. They opened with a single point when Briar Schwaller Huerlimann played a gentle tap-back.

Then, Switzerland earned a steal of two in the second end when, despite taking out two Swiss stones, Great Britain’s Jennifer Dodds failed to remove the rest. The Swiss added another single steal in the third when Dodds’s stone rolled too far after a hit.

Yannick Schwaller, Switzerland © World Curling / Celine Stucki

Great Britain finally got on the scoreboard with two points from a Power Play in the fourth end.

The Brits then levelled the score to 4-4 in the fifth end with a steal of two when Huerlimann’s draw wasn’t close enough. Switzerland eventually closed the game out with a score of two in the eighth end from a Huerlimann draw, for a 7-6 win. Great Britain still sit at the top of the table, but now with seven wins and one loss.

Speaking after the game, Yannick Schwaller said, “It doesn’t matter that we’re the first team to beat them, you need wins anyway to make the semi-finals, but it does give us confidence.”

His wife Briar added, “We know where we are and what we have to do — we have to play strong for the next two games and then hopefully the table will look good for us.”

Briar Schwaller-Huerlimann, Switzerland © World Curling / Celine Stucki

In this session, Itay had a strong, crowd-pleasing 8-2 win over Czechia in just six ends.

Italy started one point down in the first end, but then went on a scoring run from the second end to the fifth, moving them to an 8-1 lead. Czechia had a consolation single point in the sixth end and then conceded at 8-2.

This result puts Italy in joint second place alongside United States of America on five wins and two losses.

Amos Mosaner and Stefania Constantini, Italy © World Curling / Celine Stucki

The Americans had to work hard to record their 5-3 win in this session against Estonia. They never held a lead in the game until the seventh end when Estonia’s Marie Kaldvee missed a tricky take-out to give the Americans a steal of one and a 4-3 lead. Another single steal in the eighth through another Kaldvee error handed United States of America a 5-3 win.

After the game Korey Dropkin said, “That Estonian team are really good — they’re world medallists for a reason. They put us in a lot of tough spots, and we were doing the same thing to them. We put them in some tough spots at the end there and that got us a couple of steals.

“That was a big one for us, we needed it. We just need to keep hanging in tight, stay patient, keep believing, and keep putting the stones in the right spots.”

Meanwhile, Cory Thiesse said, “We’re happy. We think we’re getting better in every single game. We knew this wasn’t going to be an easy week coming into it. There are so many strong teams here — every team is great. We just need to focus on one game, one rock at a time.”

Korey Dropkin, United States of America © World Curling / Celine Stucki

Sweden faced Canada in this session, and it was another tight affair, with the teams tied at 3-3 at the fourth end break.

In the sixth end, Canada then used their Power Play and Jocelyn Peterman drew her final stone onto the button to score two points and take a 5-4 lead.

Sweden then responded with their own Power Play in the sixth end, and Isabella Wranaa cleared out a Canadian stone to score three points for a 7-5 lead. Canada could only take one point from the eighth end, and Sweden won 7-6.

Team Sweden © World Curling / Celine Stucki

This puts Sweden into fourth place on the rankings with five wins and three losses.

After this Rasmus Wranaa said, “We knew that after we lost three games in a row earlier, we had to win all of our games. We’ve had that feeling for a few games now and apparently that’s when we play our best. We felt we had good control there — Jocelyn made a couple of amazing draws though.”

His sister Isabella added, “I thought we played good through the whole game. We’re very happy that we have it in our own hands.”