Winter Olympics 2022 – Team GB need extra end to beat unfancied Australia after blowing 6-1 lead

Updated 04/02/2022 at 09:24 GMT

Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds now have three wins from four matches after making an impressive start to the mixed doubles at the Winter Olympics. However, they were staring at a disaster after allowing debutants Australia back into their match on Friday. Watch every moment of Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 on discovery+

'Great shot' - Mouat wins match for Team GB against Australia in mixed doubles curling

Team GB needed an extra end to get back to winning ways in the curling mixed doubles at Beijing 2022 as they saw off Australia 9-8.

Arriving on the back of their first defeat, the British pair of Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds raced into a 6-1 lead as they took on unfancied pair Dean Hewitt and Tahli Gill.

Australia had never won a match in Olympic curling history, making its debut in Beijing, but they won three points with the hammer and then two against to draw level after six ends.

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GB restored their lead with two in the seventh, but Australia forced overtime with another courageous fightback, taking two in the final regulation end.

Mouat played a brilliant penultimate shot to tee up Dodds for victory, clearing the house, and a botched final by Australia saw GB swerve a huge upset.

Despite making hard work of the win, the result leaves Team GB with three wins from four matches, leaving them joint second, with the top four enough to reach the semi-finals.

Mouat and Dodds take on the Czech Republic in their next match on Saturday (0605 GMT) before they take on Italy later that evening (1205 GMT).

Mouat says he is happy with how the pair recovered from their first defeat of the competition to Switzerland, having started with wins over Sweden and Canada.

"It was great. I feel so much more confidence in myself and my abilities again," he said.

That was such a good game for me to settle into this event. I spoke to my sports psychologist last night and I was just saying what I wanted to do and she put me back in the right head space.

"I just took an extra second every time I was sliding out, that's basically what curling is - we obviously try and repeat things over and over again. I was really happy with this performance."

Despite making hard work of the win, Dodds claimed the first half was their best performance of the tournament so far, and hopes they can turn that into a complete performance: "I missed a couple second half, but really proud of how Bruce and I played that game.

"We got on top of draw weight early which was important in that first half of the game.

"We're really happy. If you said at the start of the competition we would have beaten quite a few of the teams you'd expect to be in the play-offs, we definitely would have taken that."

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