Great Britain get first win at Olympic Winter Games against Canada

Great Britain came onto the ice against world champions Canada in Saturday morning’s fourth women’s round-robin session, looking for their first win.

They showed their intent early when, in the third end, Canada held a 1-0 lead, and their fourth player Rebecca Morrison took out a Canadian stone near the button, to score three points and take a 3-1 lead.

Sophie Sinclair and Jennifer Dodds, Great Britain © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

The British quartet were then able to follow that up with a single steal in the fourth end when Canada’s skip Rachel Homan missed a take-out attempt, upping Great Britain’s lead to 4-1. Canada scored one in the fifth with a raise take-out by Homan as the teams went into the break, the score at 4-2 in Great Britain’s favour.

The teams swapped singles in the sixth and seventh ends, and then in the eighth, still with a 5-3 lead, Great Britain’s Morrison faced three Canadian counting stones when she came to play her last. She delivered a gentle draw into the pocket of stones clustered round the button, to score two points and improve the British lead to 7-3.

Team Canada © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Canada responded with a draw for one by Homan in the ninth, and then in the tenth, Morrison removed one of three Canadian stones in the house to give up a score of two from the end, but win the game by 7-6.

After this first win, British skip Sophie Jackson said, “That will more than do for me! That was a great game, I really enjoyed it.”

Speaking further she said, “There was no massive difference between our first two games and this game, we just turned our second half into what the first half has been for all of the games, really. All four of us shot really well and Becca had an absolutely amazing game, so that’s good to see.”

Rebecca Morrison, Great Britain © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

Her teammate Jennifer Dodds, added, “We’re really happy with where we are as a team. We knew that performance was in us. The first two games we had really good first five ends and we just let the second half slip, so today at the fifth end we just knew, we were just going to take that extra second, make sure our shots are on point and we executed that well today. Becca had a great game, some of her shots were so good out there and it’s really nice to see her playing like that.”

Looking forward Jackson said, “We want more of the same, please! We’ll just go and debrief and talk about what was different in that game, and make sure we carry that forward into the rest of the competition.”

Sophie Jackson and Rebecca Morrison, Great Britain © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

People’s Republic of China faced Italy in this session and seemed to stay in charge in the first half, taking a 4-3 lead into the break. However, Italy levelled the score at 4-4 in the sixth end when their skip Stefania Constantini played a long angled promote into the house for one point. People’s Republic of China took the lead again in the seventh end when their skip Wang Rui played a tap-back for one and a 5-4 lead.

In the eighth, Italy’s Constantini got the biggest crowd cheer of the session when she removed two Chinese stones with a double take-out, to score three and take a 7-5 lead.

Stefania Constantini, Italy © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

In the ninth end, People’s Republic of China’s Wang drew her final stone onto the button, to score two points and level the game at 7-7. In a tense tenth end, Italy’s Constantini missed on a hit-and-roll attempt to give People’s Republic of China a steal of one and an 8-7 win.

This puts them into joint second place on the rankings alongside Republic of Korea, Switzerland and United States of America, behind Sweden, who were not scheduled to play in this session.

After this win Wang said, “That was great! Our team was calm and played well.”

She added, “We’ve got two wins now, so we’re happy, but we’re not thinking about that too much. There’s a long way to go for the whole week. So, we just want to stay calm and play our best game.”

Wang Rui, People’s Republic of China © World Curling / Stephen Fisher

There was only one other game in this session, in which Japan faced Switzerland.

In this game, Japan scored twos in the fourth and seventh ends, and also managed a single steal in the eighth when Switzerland’s fourth player Alina Paetz wrecked on a front guard with her last stone of the end. Japan went on to a 7-5 victory to record their first win so far, while this was a first loss for Switzerland.