Eve Muirhead kept her Olympic dream alive by snatching another narrow victory over Switzerland at the Gangneung Curling Centre.
? | And that’s why we #lovecurling @evemuirhead keeps her nerve in the final end to guide @TeamGB to victory over ??
?? 8-7 ??
Qualification remains in our own hands!#curling #NationalLottery #PyeongChang2018 pic.twitter.com/jMqOCkLbZb
— UK Sport (@uk_sport) February 19, 2018
But, faced with handing the Swiss the hammer in a pivotal extra end, Muirhead came up with a perfect stone to take two on the last and clinch an 8-7 victory.
Britain’s men’s claimed a last-gasp 7-6 win over Denmark, giving Kyle Smith’s team four wins from their opening seven games. Next they play Norway on Tuesday.
The 22-year-old crashed in training and did not compete in Sochi four years ago as a result, belatedly making her Olympics bow at the Phoenix Snow Park.
She scored 74.00 for her first of two qualification runs, good enough to advance as one of 12 qualifiers led by Cassie Sharpe of Canada, who was awarded a best of 93.40. Molly Summerhayes was 17th with 66.00.
Penny Coomes and Nick Buckland were 10th in the ice dance short dance programme with a score of 68.36. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir of Canada scored 83.67 to lead ahead of Tuesday’s free dance.
Canadian pilot Justin Kripps and brakeman Alexander Kopacz and Francesco Friedrich and Thorsten Margis, the German pilot and brakeman, respectively, could not be separated after four runs.
Bronze went to Lativa’s Oskars Melbardis and Janis Strenga, while British duo Brad Hall and Joel Fearon finished 12th, 1.48 seconds behind.
? “I didn’t think I could beat Cha’s time after he did an Olympic Record. In the last 50m I thought this is definitely a medal but crossing the finish line and have an entire stadium go silent is really cool.” @hoawi ??
#️⃣ #SpeedSkating #PyeongChang2018 pic.twitter.com/ga21BU5b8Q
— ISU Speed Skating (@ISU_Speed) February 19, 2018
Norway’s Havard Lorentzen won the men’s 500m long-track speed-skating with an Olympic record of 34.41 seconds.
Silver went to Cha Min-kyu of South Korea, 0.01secs behind, with Gao Tingyu of China taking bronze, 0.23 further adrift.
Norway won the men’s team ski jumping final ahead of Germany and Poland.
