It may not have been the serene opening night Olympic organisers hoped for, but Team GB’s Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds made a dream start in their bid for curling gold.
The mixed doubles pair were among the first eight athletes to compete at the Winter Olympic Games but their opening match was disrupted by a partial power cut after just five minutes.
The technical gremlins caused a short delay as staff at the Cortina Curling Stadium scrambled to fix the issue, in what proved to be another logistical headache for Olympic officials.
It has already been confirmed the new ice hockey venue in Milan will not be fully complete before tomorrow’s opening match, though schedulers insist all fixtures will still be played there, while a cable car designed to take fans to the women’s alpine skiing is also incomplete.
The delay did not stop Mouat and Dodds from beating Norway’s Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten in their opening round-robin match.
The pair won 8-6 against the married couple, who beat them in the semi-finals of the last Olympics in Beijing.
“I didn’t mind the lights flicking on and off, it was like a dance and a boogie in a night club,” Mouat said, “We forgot quite quickly about it because we were so focussed on the game but these things happen. It is nothing new to us.
“The opening match was amazing. There are people in the stands, which is pretty special after having nobody at the last Olympics because of Covid.
“It is nice to have an atmosphere and play with Jen at the Olympics, we grew up together and love to compete together.”
This was a tense match, with Skaslien and Nedregotten – who won silver four years ago – ranked three in the world and playing well.
But childhood friends Mouat and Dodds used every ounce of their experience to prevail. Dodds, was particularly impressive. She weighted the last stone of the second end to perfection, nudging Norway’s out of the way to secure three points.
At the end of the fifth, Norway had the hammer and were eyeing a three-point haul of their own until Dodds delivered a nerveless stone that settled on the button and meant Skaslien could only win one.
And she also helped deliver another three-point haul in the sixth end, which effectively sealed the victory.
“That is why we play the game,” she said, “This was a good confidence-booster to start the week and though that was the first time I will need to draw the pin, it is not going to be the last.
“This is a good confidence builder for the rest of the week. I love being in these pressure situations.
“An arm-wrestle is a good description, it was a very back and forth game. It took us a wee minute to figure out which side of the ice was curling more than the other, and once we sorted that, we had much better control.
“That is when we took that step up in performance and went from there.”
The 10-team mixed doubles is a quick-fire competition and the pair will have played more than half of their round robin matches before Friday’s opening ceremony.
They are in action twice on Thursday, starting against Estonia at 9.05am and then Czechia at 6.05pm UK time, as they look to move towards a top-four place that would put them in the semi-finals.
“This win is massive, you always want to start with a really tough opponent to get the ball rolling and see where you are,” Dodds added.
“We definitely played well but there are elements we want to improve on. We know what that is and what we need to sharpen up.
“We have played Estonia a lot this season and they are a great team but we are going to have to play a lot better than that to beat them.”
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