Winter Olympics 2026: GB curlers denied Olympic gold at death yet again

After Thursday’s epic semi-final victory over Switzerland, Mouat described it as “our gold medal”. Insolent? Maybe. However, this belief was actually established.

His rink has won a record 12 Grand Slam titles, as well as two World Championships and several European titles since the last Games.

Moreover, they have a perfect record against the Canadians and beat them in last year’s world semi-finals. Jacobs’ timeout team won the round robin meeting earlier in the week, but it was a rare reversal.

In this competition, Great Britain led after six wins before suffering a 9–5 defeat that left them needing support from other teams.

The same thing happened this time; After a crafty opening half in which he and 2014 gold medalist Brad Jacobs exchanged points, Mouat produced a superb double header to put Great Britain 5-4 ahead at this stage.

Canada, who had a tumultuous time here due to allegations of cheating, were tied after seven, but England had the hammer advantage in two of the final three rounds.

But they couldn’t make the most of it.

Just one in the eighth for Great Britain gave Canada a whiff of an opportunity and they ruthlessly snatched it, capitalizing on some loose pieces in the ninth to take an 8-6 lead into the final.

Mouat had the hammer but needed two to hit an extra hammer. Could the man widely regarded as the best bowler in the world come up with the goods in the biggest moment?

He couldn’t. And for the second Olympics in a row, the British track was left with a medal it didn’t want.

“We wanted to win for each other,” an emotional Hardie told BBC Sport.

“The pain four years ago was so great that we wanted to try again. We gave ourselves a chance, but unfortunately we couldn’t get there again.”