Winter Olympics: Silver medal for Great Britain curlers after defeat to Canada

In a venue where they once filmed James Bond's 'A View to a Kill', the Scot was left shaken and stirred at the hands of those damned Canadians.

Mouat is a two-time world champion and one of his sport's undisputed all stars but the stark stats show he comes up just a bit short in this game of inches at the Olympics.

Two silvers - alongside Hammy McMillan, Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie - is no bad return but it'll sting this was the fourth consecutive Olympic medal match he's lost in two Games appearances.

"I am just a bit in shock. We felt like we were probably the better team there," said a visibly emotional Mouat, the medal Team GB's fourth, delivering on their pre Games target with Zoe Atkin among the favourites for Sunday's rearranged freestyle skiing halfpipe final in Livigno.

“I think we put ourselves in a really good position to win the game. It just came down to a few shots in the ninth and tenth — all of us missed one. We’re disappointed — very disappointed — but we battled so hard all week just to get here.

“I’m trying to remind myself how much of a fight it was even to win a medal. I’m incredibly proud to be able to say I’m a two-time Olympic medallist. When I was five, six, seven years old and dreaming of being an Olympian, I’d have been unbelievably proud of this. That’s what I’ll try to hold on to.”

Brad Jacobs was the Canadian skip 12 years ago when these teams last clashed in an Olympic final. With their aggressive approach, tight tops and bulging muscles, his rink were dubbed the ‘Buff Boys’ and they duly beat Great Britain up in the most one-sided Olympic final on record.

This tournament started with his rink showing their not-so-nice-guy side when they turned the air blue after being accused of cheating by Sweden. He may be a little greyer and a little less buff, but Jacobs brings the same steely-eyed intensity and refusal to beaten.

He was looking to become the first skip to win two Olympic golds; Mouat and co wanted to avoid becoming the first to lose two Olympic finals.

‘This hurts pretty bad’

This was cagey curling, an attritional contest between two evenly matched rinks that was ultimately decided by fractions. A moment of brilliance in the sixth end had edged Mouat’s rink ahead, the skip playing a precision double take-out to seize the advantage. But Jacobs is relentless and when he picked up a three in the penultimate end, it moved them to a two point lead it was regulation to defend.

"We wanted to win it for each other," said Hardie. "The pain from four years ago was that much, we thought let's go and give it another go. Not many people have two Olympic medals but right now this hurts pretty bad. We gave ourselves the chance. So much good work to try and redeem ourselves but unfortunately we've not got there again."

It’s 24 years since 5.6 million viewers stayed up past midnight to watch Rhona Martin deliver her ‘Stone of Destiny’ to claim curling gold in Salt Lake City. Eve Muirhead’s win four years ago came in the small hours, but this was Saturday night TV primetime — the muscly Canadians cast as Gladiators and Mouat and co just hoping for a Surprise, Surprise.

Canada had eased through the round-robin games with seven wins and two defeats. Mouat’s rink — the defending world champions — needed to rely on the results of others to progress. In their meeting earlier this week, Canada won with room to spare.

"I'm proud of my guys. I'm proud of the way that we were able to hang in there throughout that game," said Jacobs. "To see the look on their faces at the end and celebrating that win is special.

"Bruce and his team are a class act, they are one of the best teams in the world, and they really made us fight for it out there. That was probably one of the most tense matches I've ever been involved with, it felt just one or two moments could decide it and thankfully they fell for us.

"It's never easy to beat them but when you win the Olympics, you want to beat the best."

Few sports induce that aching, pit-of-the-stomach anxiety like this strategic game of incremental tension, played out over a glacial three hours. Every four years it captures the public’s attention, prompting family debates about whether it was a good call to ‘peel the guard’ or ‘give up the hammer’.

It’s sport’s ultimate ASMR — the echoing shouts of “hurry hard” as stones rumble across the pebbled ice, the scratching and scrubbing of brooms, followed by the hollow clank of granite on granite. But when it comes to matches with Canada, there are usually groans of disappointment too.

Scotland gave curling to the world, but Canada have made it their game. Over one million people play it regularly and they’ve won the men’s world title 25 times more than their nearest rival.

A partisan crowd packed with British flags and Scottish Saltires did their best to keep the faith as the bagpipes played but ultimately this was just a sad lament for an opportunity spurned.

Mouat admits he can be superstitious, so hopefully no one told him that Muirhead and Martin both used yellow stones when they won their Olympic golds. There is no information on the colour South Lanarkshire farmer Willie Jackson - still the only British man to skip an Olympic winning team - curled with in 1924. They were probably just black and white.

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