Winter Olympics 2022 - Team GB curlers Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds suffer first defeat in mixed second day

Team GB curlers Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds suffered their first defeat of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, having earlier recorded their second win.

The reigning world champions began the day with a 6-4 win over Canada, before they lost 8-7 to Switzerland in the evening.

GB began with the hammer in the later match as Dodds took full advantage to dislodge two Swiss stones on the final stone, delivering a perfect attempt right on the button to put them 1-0 up.

But a mistake from Dodds on her final stone - an attempt to knock two Swiss rocks out of the house - in the second end opened the door for their opponents, who scored three to move ahead.

Dodds made amends in the next end, pulling Team GB level again with a score of two with an expertly delivered shot right into the centre.

Switzerland had the hammer in the fourth and they put themselves in a great position to get a big score again, and when Dodds was unable to achieve a clearance on her final score, Jenny Perret delivered a perfect shot to put her team 6-3 up at the half-way point.

It left Britain with a lot to do heading into the fifth end, and when Mouat was unable to take the Swiss stone out of the house with his penultimate shot, Dodds had to settle for one to reduce the deficit to two.

Switzerland opened the door for GB in the sixth, when Martin Rios failed to execute in his team’s penultimate shot, but Dodds’ final throw was enough to force a steal for Britain, even though they did reduce their opponents to one.

The seventh was always going to be key, when Team GB used their powerplay. It was to be a see-saw end, but two mistakes from the Swiss turned a likely one stone outcome to three for GB, with Dodds delivering the final throw to draw the match level heading into the final end.

But crucially, Switzerland were to begin that with the hammer and they called a time out with two shots to play, with head coach and Sochi 2014 silver medallist David Murdoch coming down to the ice to offer advice. But with all to play for heading into the last few shots, Dodds was unable to force the Swiss into having to play their final stone - and GB were beaten narrowly for the first time at the Games.

Earlier in the day, GB recorded an impressive win over Canada, who featured one half of the Pyeongchang 2018 gold medal winning team in John Morris.

GB came out on top after initially falling behind, when they conceded the opening end, but they took the next two to move ahead.

Canada nudged ahead in the match when they took advantage of their powerplay in the sixth end, but with Mouat and Dodds responding in kind in the next end - but only after struggling to take advantage of it at the start. Mouat eventually drew in behind a guard and a mistake from Homan allowed Dodds to easily see out the end.

Failure from Morris to take out both British stones in his final delivery in the eighth and with Homan unable to make amends, Team GB secured a steal to take the win.

Great Britain will look to get back on track when they take on Australia from 05:35 GMT on Friday.

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