Fourth straight loss for GB’s wheelchair curlers

Great Britain slipped to a fourth successive defeat in the wheelchair curling mixed team event at the Winter Paralympics and remain second-bottom of the standings as a result of an 8-6 loss to Italy.

Only the top four of the 10 competing nations in Cortina will qualify for the semi-finals and the British side’s latest defeat means the best they can achieve in the round-robin phase is four wins – a tally already reached by four teams.

For the second time in the competition, Great Britain switched their quartet during the course of a match. Trailing the hosts 5-3 at the halfway stage, alternate Graeme Stewart replaced Austin McKenzie.

The decisive moment came in the sixth end when Italian skip Egidio Marchese delivered a superb final stone into a packed house to score three, moving his side into an 8-5 lead with two ends remaining.

Great Britain were unable to find a way back, leaving them with a record of one win and five defeats from six matches.

They have three round-robin games left to play and two of those are on Wednesday, against defending Paralympic champions China (08:05 GMT) and Latvia (19:05).

Twelve gold medals will be decided on Tuesday – six in Para-Alpine skiing and six in Para-cross-country skiing.

Neil Simpson and guide Rob Poth will hope to clinch Great Britain’s first medal of this year’s Winter Paralympics in the men’s visually-impaired Alpine combined.

The pair lie fourth after the super-G run, 1.02 seconds behind leader Giacomo Bertagnolli of Italy, with the slalom to follow at approximately 12:50 GMT.

Simpson, who won super-G gold at Beijing 2022, finished fourth in both the downhill and the super-G earlier in these Games.

He told Channel 4: “We’re in a good position and we can really charge in the slalom. It’s set up quite nicely and we’ll try to make the most of it.”