Great Britain must defeat the host nation, Italy, in their final round‑robin match of the mixed doubles curling to secure a place in the semi-finals, after being roundly beaten by China.
Jo Butterfield and Jason Kean started well against the unbeaten pair of Wang Meng and Yang Jun and led at the halfway stage. Missed opportunities and a sharp improvement from their opponents, however, meant a 5-3 lead became a 10-5 defeat, with the eighth end left unplayed.
Butterfield said the shift in the match was explained by China getting a better measure of the force needed to “draw”, or land a stone in or in front of the scoring house. “Unfortunately, in the second half they really dialled into what draw weight was. They had it very strong and we struggled,” she said.
“I was quite nervous in that game. I think it probably was the psychology of playing China. And maybe because we found ourselves in the lead you don’t believe you’re good enough. We have to shake that off and believe that we are. If we play that first four ends for eight ends, we can beat them.”
Kean said the pair had chosen to play a less cautious second half after reaching the midpoint ahead, but were unable to hit the challenging angles necessary to bump other stones out of the house.
“In the first half we kept it pretty simple and we had that draw weight,” he said. “And then in the second half we decided to start chasing. So when we have seen them play the bump, we decided we will play the bump back. And we weren’t quite icing right for that.”
The mixed doubles is a new event at the Paralympics this year. Kean and Butterfield will face Italy on Monday afternoon in the last of their seven round-robin matches.
There was also defeat for Great Britain in the mixed team curling, as they lost 5-4 against Canada, the 2022 bronze medallists. The four-strong team are sixth in the table, having played three of nine matches in the round-robin stage, with the top four sides progressing to the semi-finals.
