Men's curlers out too
Thursday February 25, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

It was a tense start by both teams who knew theyhad to win to progress in The Games.

Sweden took an early lead and then team GB fought back to 5-5.

However Sweden came out on top in the end.

A gutted Great Britain skip, David Murdoch said, "It is heartbreaking. It is the worst thing possible as far as our team's concerned.

"We put ourselves in a position where every game mattered so much, as we got to the end of the week. In our game against Switzerland, had one shot curled another inch then we would have been in the semi final.

"From that point on it was backs to the wall. We had some really great games, but we probably should have beaten a few more teams this week, including Canada. We just didn't finish some of the games off like we usually do.

"We did everything we possibly could. This last two years we have trained six days a week, practiced as hard as we could and came into these Games as World Champions, which is a great position to be in. But sometimes it doesn't go right for you and this week it didn't go well at all.

"Today we weren't sharp in the first five ends, but the team showed a lot of character. In the last five we piled a lot of pressure on them and curled the way we should have been curling.

"In the tenth end we over swept my last shot and if it had curled another inch I would have been standing here with a smile on my face and in the semi final, but it's not to be.

"When you sacrifice so much and you are away from home and you train as hard as we do and you don't get the result it is hard to take and it will take a long time to get over."

When asked if it would continue to Sochi he added, "We have the Scottish Championships next week to qualify for the Worlds. Sochi is four years away and there is a lot of thinking time before then. However the thing missing for me and the others is an Olympic medal, we are more than capable of winning but we need to be sharper in Olympic week."

Great Britain's women's team was beaten earlier in the week and is out of The Olympics.

Team GB had been looking for a medal in the bob sleigh too, but it is not to be.

The challenge of Britain’s world champions, Nicola Minichiello and Gillian Cooke, ended following a crash on their third run.

Minichiello and Cooke went into today’s final two runs in 10th place.

The world champions knew they had to give it everything if they had any chance of making the podium. But their hopes ended when they crashed on their opening run of the day.

Although they crossed the finish line at the end of the run, they were unable to start their fourth run because of a leg injury sustained by Cooke and damage to the sled.

“We knew we really had to go for it today and we threw everything into that run. We still believed we could do it, even after yesterday. Unfortunately it didn't pay off.

 We hit corner one again, but the rest of the run was going pretty well until we made a mistake going into 11," Minichiello said.



"We didn't do our fourth run today because Gillian hurt her leg in the crash and because the sled was damaged.

We're devastated by what happened, because so much of our focus has been on these Games," she added. "It's a tough track, but that's no excuse because it's the same for everyone."

However the GBR 2 team did well coming a very respectable 11th. The young Team GB bobsleigh partnership of Paula Walker and Kelly Thomas were pleased with their performance.

Information, interviews and photo courtesy of British Olympic Association.

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