BEIJING (Reuters) -World champions Sweden became the first team to qualify for the men’s curling event semi-finals at the National Aquatics Centre on Monday, with their perfect record after six games securing them a spot in the last four.
Niklas Edin’s rink, winners of the last three world titles, were favourites coming into the Olympics and are the only unbeaten team left in the men’s competition following their 7-5 victory over the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).
“I think (it’s) the hunger more than anything,” Edin said. “We’ve been in the game for a long time. We’ve done very, very well. And in the last seven, eight years we played a lot of championships and won finals, lost finals and all that.
“But I think it’s all coming down to us wanting to win this really badly… We expect to give ourselves a chance to win.”
Denmark were pushed all the way to an extra end by Norway but finally claimed their first win after skip Mikkel Krause delivered the crucial final point to seal a 6-5 victory in their sixth round-robin game.
Brad Gushue led Canada to a 7-3 win over Italy to strengthen their push for the playoffs, with the team now sitting in third place behind Britain and Sweden.
It was the second Olympic contest between Gushue and Italy skip Joel Retornaz, who steered his team to an upset 7-6 win over the Canadians on home ice at the Turin Games in 2006.
In the women’s competition, Jennifer Jones and Canada got back on track with crucial wins over the ROC and Britain while reigning champions Sweden scraped past Switzerland in the extra end later on Monday.
With their backs to the wall after losing three straight round-robin games, Canada won 11-5 with a dominant display against the ROC.
“One million percent we needed to win that game. That was a massive win,” Jones said before returning to the ice later when Canada dented Britain’s playoff hopes after scoring a 7-3 win.
“I’ve won things from trailing and when you know you’ve been a front runner, you can do it any way, but you need to get on a roll at these events. Maybe this is the start of a roll for us.”
Leaders Switzerland and second-placed Japan held on to their positions in the standings after six games, despite 6-5 and 10-5 losses to Sweden and South Korea respectively.
Sweden leapfrogged the United States to move into third following their win over world champions Switzerland later on Monday, while Denmark beat ROC 10-5 in the other evening tie.
Teams play nine matches in the preliminary round with the top four reaching the semi-finals.
(Reporting by Hritika Sharma; Editing by Robert Birsel, Ken Ferris and Pritha Sarkar)
