Beijing 2022 men's curling: Team GB beat USA to advance to gold medal final

Bruce Mouat and his men will face Sweden for gold after they patiently clinched victory 8-4 over reigning Olympic champions USA.

Great Britain men's curling team are through to the Olympic gold medal match at Beijing 2022 after beating defending champions United States 8-4 on Thursday (17 February).

The win ensures that Team GB will walk away with at least a silver medal from the Games in the Chinese capital.

The Britons, skipped by Bruce Mouat, got off to shaky start as Team USA made the most of a Mouat error to steal two in the second end and go 2-0 up.

Keeping calm, Team GB responded with a triple in the third to the take the lead.

Britain led 5-4 at the midway point, and they stayed in front as U.S. skip John Shuster opted to blank ends to try and leave himself the hammer in the 10th.

With GB lying one in the ninth, Shuster chose to forgo an easy draw for the single and allow a steal for a 6-4 Britain advantage.

The gamble did not pay off as the American missed with a difficult take-out effort which saw Britain steal two more for an 8-4 victory.

"I'm really struggling to sum it up," said Mouat after a thrilling semi-final. "You saw from our reaction that it just pure elation."

After bumping fists with their opponents, Mouat roared as he joined his rink in celebration. They patted each other on the back in front a small group of delighted supporters, including GB women's skip Eve Muirhead, who cheered their team's achievement.

Mouat admitted to feeling the tension in the closing stages.

He said, "Normally we are quite confident when we are two-up coming home, but we were in an Olympic semi-final so the nerves were obviously there.

"We were just trying to focus on not losing that three. John and his team are so good tactically and really good with the taps so we were expecting him to be really close."