It didn’t require a double-touch for the curlers of Canada to push Britain to the brink of Olympic elimination. They shoved themselves there all by themselves.
On the back of an otherwise poor campaign, Bruce Mouat’s rink were beaten 9-5 by a team that is yet to emerge from under the surreal cloud of cheating claims.
There was no controversy about this one, though. No repeat of accusations. No memes.
No call for Mouat to channel the Swedish by calling out an opponent for nudging the stones in an improper fashion.
No, none of that. It was merely a key match that Britain had in their control at 5-4 through six ends and then slipped hard on their backsides.
Ultimately, Mouat’s side were so far behind they tossed in the match with an end to spare.
Team GB are on the brink of being knocked out of curling at the Winter Olympics in Italy
They were beaten 9-5 by a Canadian team who have been embroiled in a cheating row at the Games
For Team GB, the silver-medallists and reigning world champions, this fourth defeat in the tournament has left them in the unenviable position of needing a win against the United States in their last of nine round-robin ties on Wednesday to stand a chance of making the semi-final.
Even if Mouat can engineer that win, Britain must hope either fourth-placed Italy or Norway, in third, lose both of their remaining matches in order to progress.
As for Brad Jacobs’ Canadians, they have guaranteed qualification, and have done so with minimal poor behaviour – the worst of it was a bit of swearing, albeit no rerun of Marc Kennedy’s invitation to a Swede to ‘f*** off’.
In truth, they had no reason to get tense.
Mouat, Bobby Lammie, Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan started badly – two down after the first end – but there was a fightback, beginning in the fourth.
With Britain at 3-1 down and holding the hammer, Mouat capitalised on a Jacobs error by threading the needle on a congested rink to take the double for 3-3.
Marc Kennedy, who was at the centre of the storm, helped Canada secure an important victory
From there, they had momentum and, eventually, a lead, secured after six ends and 100 minutes of play when Mouat picked up another pair for 5-4.
Somewhere in the arena, a bagpiper piped up. Prematurely, it would seem.
A Jacobs triple in the seventh turned the tie, leaving the Brits 7-5 down with three to play and pinning their hopes on having the hammer for two of those.
An optimistic thought, really, because a Canadian steel brought the score to 8-5 and by the time another stone was claimed in the ninth, the Brits were ready to quit.
Meanwhile, Brad Hall and Leon Greenwood, stepping in for the injured Taylor Lawrence, finished in 12th place in the two-man bobsleigh, 3.5sec behind champions Germany.
