'You can't do that' - GB curling gold medal hopes dashed at Winter Olympics as battle for bronze looms

The British pair had topped the round-robin stage and beat Sweden 7-4 on Friday, but their winning touch deserted them in Cortina.

While Great Britain prevailed in the first end 1-0, the Swedish duo of Rasmus and Isabella Wranaa gathered momentum in taking the next two before Mouat and Dodds scored a point in the fourth to leave the match poised at 3-2 at the halfway stage.

The Edinburgh duo were back on level terms after the fifth end, but Sweden scored five points in the sixth to put victory within their grasp and a final point in the seventh end sealed victory, with the teams shaking hands.

Mouat and Dodds will now face Italy on Tuesday afternoon in the bronze medal match, with the 2022 Olympic champions beaten by the United States in their semi-final.

Dodds said: “I think we’re just both disappointed we didn’t play like we have played all week. In an Olympic semi-final you can’t do that and the Swedes capitalised on our mistakes and we got punished for it tonight.

“Probably the common theme was we were always throwing heavy, for example I was bouncing off with my first shot and they got another one in there which kind of put us on the back foot.”

Of the crucial sixth end, Mouat said: “The theme was just heavy.

“We missed a lot of things that either went through the rings or missed the shots we were aiming for, so we just needed to try to regroup after that and get our two or three in the next end.

“It was just a bad end to have in an Olympic semi-final.”

Mouat and Dodds will now look to go one better than in Beijing in 2022, when they were beaten by another Swedish pair in the bronze match and finished fourth.

Earlier in the day, Aberdonian Kirsty Muir landed one of the toughest tricks in the book but it was not quite enough to seal Great Britain’s first medal of the Olympics in the women’s ski slopestyle final at Livigno Snow Park.

Muir summoned a double cork 1440 on her final run but scored 76.05, agonisingly short of the 76.46 of third-placed Canadian Megan Oldham. She had ranked sixth after her second of three runs, with each athlete’s single best score determining the final rankings.

Disappointment was etched on the face of the 21-year-old, who arrived at the Games on the back of a gold medal at the prestigious Aspen X Games two weeks ago. Her winning score there, 93.66, would have been enough to give her the Olympic title with something to spare.

Switzerland’s Mathilde Gremaud won gold with 86.96 with China’s Eileen Gu second on 86.58.

“I’m quite mixed at the moment,” said Muir, who still has the freestyle Big Air competition to come next week. “I’m not angry with myself, not disappointed, but fourth place is just a tough place to be.

“I had difficulties in the first two runs, and got a bit annoyed with myself after the second. I’m really happy that I managed to pull myself back and put a run down. I obviously wanted to be on that podium, but I’m going to try to take the positives.”