Winter Olympics 2026: Bruce Mouat’s Team GB rink beats Sweden

Mouat has defeated Niklas Edin in eight of his last 10 encounters and the Swede has been unable to break that upward trend in the Dolomites in northern Italy.

This allowed the Scot to recover from medal disappointment in the mixed doubles and left the Swedes in a precarious position, having lost their first match against the home team and then facing another medal contender in Canada.

“All four of us were shooting really well,” Mouat told BBC Sport. “We haven’t trained together in a month so we want to get back and the flow of getting to where we want it to be is perfect.”

These two are arguably the best tracks of the competition; The Canadians, Italians and Swiss are also likely to be in the medal discussion and this was a high-level competition.

But Mouat, Hammy McMillan, Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie won the hammer – the right to score the last over and theoretically control the game – and dictated from then on.

Edin failed to make a highly-priced double debut in the first round, allowing Mouat to take two points and establish a lead that the Great Britain field would hold on to.

Loss became the theme of Sweden’s acclaimed jump; The 40-year-old actor repeatedly failed to ask the questions Mouat asked. As a result, the English team closed the half with a 4-1 lead and increased this advantage to 6-2 with the remaining three goals.

Sweden needed something big but could only find something small. They were limited to one man in the eighth round and Edin decided enough was enough and offered his help to Mouat, finishing that contest with two points to spare.

“Everyone is reminding us that they beat us in Beijing, so we had that motivation,” Hardie told BBC Sport. “They had a day off and we took advantage of it.”