No cheating, no controversy and no need for an umpire to police the hog line. For Bruce Mouat and his collection of sweepers, those will have to serve as silver linings after they were beaten by the maligned curlers of Canada in the Olympic final on Saturday night.
If there were any suspicions of double-touches or subtle prods on the granite, the kind that drove Sweden into a state of rage a week earlier, then they were not aired in the chilly confines of this arena in Cortina. Quite simply the best team won.
And within that point is a gut blow for Mouat and his mates, Bobby Lammie, Grant Hardie and Hammy McMillan. As with the Beijing final of 2022, the best team happened to be the other guys, led by Brad Jacobs and including, among others, Marc Kennedy, the man at the epicentre of that row with the Swedes.
Along with Brett Gallant and Ben Hebert, they deserved their win, secured 9-6 in a match of undulations and a handful of thrills, none greater than the decisive moment in the penultimate end.
Heading into that ninth instalment, Mouat was in possession of a 6-5 lead and the knowledge that they would hold final-throw advantage in the last. In this curious world, that’s not a match point, but it is a golden opportunity.
But then came the turn. The curl, even. Because this contest deviated quite wildly, with Jacobs nailing a triple in the ninth and, with the scores pivoted to 8-6, Mouat’s team were soon denied their crowning achievement. They have been world champions twice in the past three years and double Olympic silver medallists in the space of four – galling, in its way.
Bruce Mouat missed out on Olympic goal yet again as Team GB were beaten by Canada
The Canadians were much maligned amid cheating allegations from earlier at the Games but on Saturday night there was no disputing their brilliance
Hardie spoke for the group when he later said: ‘The pain from four years ago was that much, we thought let’s go and give it another go. We gave ourselves the chance. So much good work to try and redeem ourselves but unfortunately we’ve not got there again.’
Mouat recently joked that he lacks tear ducts, offering an explanation for why he rarely cries, but he looked silently devastated here. We might assume a similar reaction spread through the ice rinks of Sweden, from where the accusations against Kennedy have been most fevered.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of that saga, with little tangible evidence either way, the Canadian quartet have proven themselves incredibly resilient. Their every press conference across the past seven days has included reference to one of the more surreal cheating rows of our time, and yet they overcame the noise.
For Mouat, there was less, but his progress to this point after the calamities of the round-robin stage was no easy trek. To think, just two days earlier, they were reliant on Switzerland beating Italy to even reach the knockouts.
But, as these curlers will never tire of explaining, the line between those phases of a competition are definitive. If you’re in, you’re in, and all that went before is forgotten.
Making the most of that second life, Mouat’s rink bolted from the gate. Or as much as you can ever bolt in curling, which is to say that soon after six bagpipers led them to the ice they were leading 2-1, achieved with a double in the second end.
That was promising. But the Canadians had recovered from a losing position to beat Mouat in the round-robin and they steadied themselves quickly here.
A double in the very next end shunted the pendulum back Jacobs’s way, before a trading of singles brought up the sixth, with the score at 4-3 Canada and the hammer in Mouat’s hand. Cue one of those bursts of excitement that, in this sport, can feel like a reward for a spectator’s patience.
The Canadians had themselves well set after their final stone, with one yellow on the right of the house and another in scoring position on the left, too. In short, two up and facing the loss of a single at worse.
But Mouat, one of the quieter, less imposing giants at the Olympics, had other ideas – he glanced his last delivery off the yellow rock on the left, sending it out of play, and from the rebound his red altered course and took out the other as well. Make his a double.
The feeling of missing out to the better team four years ago is all too familiar for the team
The Canadians were inch perfect in the ninth end as they set up their inevitable conclusion
For a few moments, he was in the ascendency. He was close. Heading into the ninth end, the lead was 6-5, Canada’s hammer, and so long as only one shot was conceded, they would be level with stone-in-hand in the last. Concede two and they’d also be feeling decent. But three? That would feel like a 44-pound lump of granite falling on your foot. Well, the Canadians took three and an 8-6 lead into the last.
Needing a double to tie, Mouat instead lost a single. Watching the Canadians hug in celebration, he had the look of a man who has witnessed such scenes twice too many times for comfort.
For Team GB’s wider contingent in Italy, the silver carried them to the lower end of their medal target. A fifth might come on the final day after Zoe Atkin’s halfpipe showdown with Eileen Gu was postponed on Saturday evening due to heavy snow. Atkin qualified for the final in first place so an uplifting British finish remains possible.
