GB wheelchair curlers hold nerve to beat USA

A 5-4 victory over the United States kept Great Britain firmly in the hunt for a semi-final spot in the wheelchair curling mixed doubles at the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics.

After starting the eight-team round-robin phase with two defeats, British pair Jo Butterfield and Jason Kean have registered two consecutive wins to move into a five-way tie for second place in the table.

China – who Great Britain face in their penultimate game – lead the standings with four wins out of four.

The top four nations after seven matches will move through to the semi-finals.

Following on from a 6-5 win against Latvia in Thursday’s evening session, Butterfield and Kean were narrow victors in a low-scoring contest against American duo Laura Dwyer and Steve Emt.

Neither side led by more than one point during the first seven ends and the sides were tied at 4-4 going into the final end, in which Great Britain had the hammer – the advantage of throwing the last stone.

“That was a tight game, it didn’t come easy,” Kean told BBC Sport. “They were playing some great shots and we were playing some great shots.

The morning session of wheelchair curling was the only sporting action at the Games on Friday, with the opening ceremony scheduled to take place in Verona from 19:00 GMT.

Great Britain’s next match in the mixed doubles is against Japan on Saturday (13:35).

Butterfield said: “It’s been quite full-on for the past couple of days so it’s nice to have a little bit of downtime.

“We’ll get a bit of recovery and might watch a bit of the opening ceremony, but we’ll make sure we’re tucked up in bed early.”

On next opponents Japan, Butterfield added: “It won’t be an easy battle. They’re the current world champions so we know they can play well.

“But we have grown into this competition and I think that’s our strength.

“In the past two games, we’ve been much more like ourselves. We’ve bounced off each other well, we’ve got good communication out there and if we play how we can play, we should do well.”

Also on Saturday, Great Britain will play twice on the first day of competition in the four-player wheelchair curling mixed team event.