Britain may yet get a golden finale to what has been a troubled Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Amid upturned bobsleighs, skeleton sleds gone wrong and misadventures on the snow, the 50-strong British contingent had been in danger of coming home from the Olympics without a medal for the first time since 1992.
Not since the introduction of National Lottery funding have Team GB been medal-less — and the £6million spent on curling over the past four years has kept that intact.
Much rests on the shoulders of men’s skip Bruce Mouat, who has given the impression of being the coolest man on ice. His visibly shaky hands in his post-semi-final interview were the first sign the 27-year-old does feel the heat.
The Scot had arrived in Beijing as one of two strong bets for gold, in his case the mixed doubles with Jen Dodds rather than in the team event. The pair came agonisingly close to a place in the final before being edged out by Norway and then slightly fell apart in the battle for bronze.
Mouat has used the services of a sports psychologist to overcome that particular heartache. Since then, he has barely put a stone wrong.
Bar a solitary round-robin defeat to the United States, his record and that of his team-mates Grant Hardie, Hammy McMillan and Bobby Lammie — more affectionately known as the double act Hammy and Lammie — has been unblemished.
Even in a tense semi-final against the only team to have beaten them at the Games, they looked unfazed, attacking the stones superbly and backing that up with a defensive and technical game a match for any rink.
Looking ahead to tomorrow’s final, former gold medallist Lars Vagberg said: “They are maybe the best team in the world. If it were a straight shootout for gold between Great Britain and Sweden, I would favour Great Britain. They have beaten Sweden the last few games.”
It was in 2002 that Vagberg won Sweden their gold, the same year as Rhona Martin’s stone of destiny sealed Britain its one and only curling gold since the sport’s introduction to the Winter Olympics programme in 1998.
Befittingly, she will be calling the match for the BBC as Mouat and his team take on the Swedes for a shot at the gold.
Mouat has been a modicum of calm efficiency through the mixed doubles and now team event, his one show of emotion a full-on explosion when a place in the final was guaranteed.
“I think for the reaction that I showed, the scream I did at the end, that was a release of tension and pressure,” he said afterwards.
In Mouat’s corner is GB head coach, David Murdoch, a former silver medallist in Sochi who described the British team as “the best-prepared curling team on the planet” and that “I am backing Bruce Mouat”.
There could yet be two medals for Britain in the curling. This afternoon, Eve Muirhead was spearheading British hopes with Dodds, Vicky Wright and Hailey Duff in their semi-final against Sweden. The offshoot of that match was either a battle for gold or bronze over the course of the weekend.
While curling primarily holds British hopes for the final weekend of action, Britain’s bobsleigh men could yet ensure the minimum medal target set by UK Sport (three) can be achieved.
Pilot Brad Hall’s ability to even make it to Beijing with minimal UK Sport support is impressive. He ended upside down at 85mph during the two-man competition, so how he would like to flip his fortunes in the four runs of the four-man competition.
Hall dispelled any suggestion there were any lasting effects of the crash. “We’re fit and healthy, we’re feeling good,” he said. “It’s a mistake I haven’t made before, it caught me off guard, that’s elite racing, it happens in Formula One, it happens in bobsleigh.”
