Winter Olympics 2018: Team GB women curlers promise to fight for bronze after agony of semi-final defeat to Sweden

Team GB’s women curlers have vowed to give everything for bronze after a heartbreaking semi-final defeat to Sweden, while Anna Hasselborg’s team will have the chance to go one better than their silver from Sochi when they take on hosts South Korea in the gold medal match.

In the end, a near-flawless performance from the Swedes left no way back into the match for the British curlers, who had played so brilliantly to knock out defending champions Canada earlier in the week.

But a huge error from Team GB skip Muirhead at the end of the seventh end put Sweden 8-3 ahead and gave her team far too much to do against elite opposition, rendering them helpless as Hasselborg closed out the victory in nine ends.

“We gave it our all tonight and the Swedish girls were on fire,” conceded Muirhead.

“I messed up a few key moments and at this level you can’t afford to do that.

“We were just outplayed but we’ve still got a medal to fight for.”

Perth-born Muirhead had dragged her all-Scottish team back into a one-sided opening half by executing a perfect clearout in the fifth end that levelled proceedings at 5-5 and could have served as a platform for the British ladies to kick on and get over some nervy mistakes in the opening exchanges.

But instead the relentless pressure from Sweden was too much to bear and Hasselborg’s perfectly-weighted final stone condemned GB to a 10-8 defeat, knowing they have just 24 hours to rouse themselves in hope of winning a medal.

“It hurts right now but we’re going to go out there and give it everything tomorrow,” said Anna Sloan, before Muirhead issued her rallying cry:

“I think as a team we are a very strong unit and if we can just go out there and play the way we know we can play, we’ll be up for tomorrow of course,” said the GB skip.

“Any semi-final you lose is hard. Very, very hard. And I felt like we had a good opportunity out there tonight… I just really hope we can go out there and get that bronze medal tomorrow night.”