Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds are dreaming big as they prepare for a medal showdown at the Winter Olympics.
The mixed curling world champions saw despair turn to joy as a complicated set of results saw them progress to the final four – finding out they were guaranteed a medal match while they waited for the bus.
Mouat and Dodds had been downcast after a 6-2 defeat to Norway in their penultimate round-robin match and were preparing for a must-win clash with the United States.
But Australia’s shock win over curling powerhouse Canada and unbeaten Italy’s victory over Sweden meant a complicated mathematical equation of head-to-head matches still secured a semi-final place.
“I’m afraid that I’m no good at maths,” joked Mouat. “We’ve just had a hug and we are obviously very excited. We’ve still got a job to do and we want to finish the round robin with a win; that’ll set us up well for the semi-finals.
“I don’t think we knew the permutations of people winning and losing. We know it’s going to be tough whoever we play in the semis, we just want to go out and string out eight ends like we know we can.
“We were the first athletes to start for Team GB and to be able to get a medal would be a great achievement.”
A revenge match against Norway is their most likely semi-final opponent but permutations could also see them take on Canada, Sweden or tournament favourites Italy.
It’s two decades since Rhona Martin inspired the British women’s rink to gold in Salt Lake City and Dodds, who is also part of Eve Muirhead’s women’s team in Beijing, is daring to dream.
Team GB have won four curling medals in the sport’s eight appearances at the Olympics, most recently when David Murdoch, the team coach, claimed men’s silver and Muirhead took women’s bronze in Sochi.
“I don’t know what I would have said 20 years ago if you’d told me this,” said Dodds. “I would have doubted myself and perhaps not had the confidence.
“What Rhona’s gold did for our sport was amazing and I really hope we can get other kids into the sport.
“I met Bruce through curling 20 years ago and we’ve been best friends ever since and now here we are at the Olympics.
“We’ve not hit our best yet, we’ve not really strung together eight ends. I’m pretty confident that a great match is there, the knockouts are a different competition and I’m confident we can do it.”
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