2 years ago
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| Hosts: Beijing, China Dates: 4-20 February |
| Coverage: Watch live on BBC TV, BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button and online; listen on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Sounds; live text and highlights on BBC Sport website and mobile app |
Great Britain's women's curlers' hopes of reaching the semi-finals of the Winter Olympics are in danger after slipping to a shock 8-4 loss to China.
Eve Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds, and Hailey Duff needed to beat the Chinese - and the Russian Olympic Committee in their final game - to be fairly sure of progressing.
But the Chinese took three in the ninth end to ultimately clinch victory.
Britain now need to beat ROC and rely on results elsewhere.
A win in that final round-robin match on Thursday (06:05 GMT) would take them to five wins and four defeats, and any places left for teams with that record would be decided on head-to-head.
Only the top four teams progress to the next round.
China had only won two of their seven matches, so Muirhead's rink were in a good position to take control of their own destiny.
However, a cagey match was turned in the host nation's favour when skip Wang Rui teed up - and then executed - a final shot for three in the ninth end.
That blow had followed Muirhead's stone in the eighth spinning just wide to limit Britain to a score of one, rather than two, to emphasise the fine margins in the match.
China's three took the score from 4-4, to 7-4, and suddenly Britain's clear advantage of having the hammer in the last end was wiped out by a daunting deficit.
Even then, Muirhead was left with a difficult double take out with the last stone to try and salvage an extra end, but again her rock just slid by.
English (US)