Canada come from behind to claim victory over GB

The Great Britain mixed wheelchair curling team suffered a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to 2022 Winter Paralympic bronze medallists Canada in their third round-robin match in Milan-Cortina.

The team of Karen Aspey, Austin McKenzie, Stewart Pimblett and Hugh Nibloe led 4-2 going into the final end but failed to execute their last stones and Canada, who had the last-stone advantage, picked up the three they needed to secure victory.

At the Para-snowboarding, Britain’s Davy Zyw was taken to hospital as a precaution after a fall during his Snowboard Cross UL (upper-limb) pre-heat.

The 38-year-old from Edinburgh is believed to be the first snowsport athlete with motor neurone disease to compete at the Games.

Team-mate James Barnes-Miller paid the price for a poor opening to his quarter-final in the same division and failed to advance.

And Scott Meenagh finished a distant 18th in the men’s Para-biathlon individual seated event – over eight minutes behind Chinese gold medallist Zixu Liu.

At the curling, GB, who had lost to Slovakia before a dramatic extra-end win over the United States on Saturday, had an early worry with an issue to Austin McKenzie’s wheelchair brakes which forced them to take a technical time out.

After a scoreless opening end, GB had a steal in the second end to take the lead but Canada scored in both the third and fourth ends – the latter a steal for a 2-1 interval advantage.

GB levelled it in the fifth end but despite having four scoring stones at one point late in the sixth end, Canada skip Mark Ideson sent down a well-placed final stone to ensure GB were just 3-2 up.

The seventh end proved a nervy affair with errors on both sides but Ideson was short with his last stone, allowing GB to steal one for a 4-2 lead going into the final end but with their opponents having last-stone advantage.