British wheelchair curling skip Hugh Nibloe insists freak incident to teammate not to blame for Winter Paralympic exit

Hugh Nibloe refused to blame a freak injury suffered by teammate David Melrose for Britain blowing their Paralympic wheelchair curling medal chances on a woeful Wednesday in Beijing.

The British team lost to Canada and Korea on Wednesday to make it mathematically impossible for them to finish in the top four of the group stage and advance to a semi-final.

The 6-3 loss against Canada was marred by a bizarre incident involving Melrose, 56, who fell from his chair when reaching for his delivery stick and had to be rushed to hospital on a stretcher.

That thrusted alternate Gary Smith back into the fray who played as Britain went on to lose 8-6 against the Koreans.

Nibloe, who himself went off with tiredness in Tuesday night's defeat against Slovakia, confirmed Melrose is fine - and had left hospital – and insists the distressing scenes did not inhibit his team’s performance in the must-win clash against Korea.

The Scot, 40, said: “When we were on the ice for the game against Korea, we were all aware that David was going to be fine and everything would be alright.

“We can’t put it down to that – maybe a little bit on the Canada game but we also can’t lay any blame there.

“We are a close-knit bunch and it’s never easy to see anyone you care about taken away on a stretcher. The most important thing is that he is okay.

“He’s reasonably good - he’s on his way back to the village tonight so we’ll see him when we go home.

“It will good to see his face – I don’t know how may painkillers he’s going to be on, but it’s great he’s coming back and he’s not had to stay in hospital overnight.”

Nibloe added: “It’s disappointing [to not be able to win a medal] – finishing early is not what we came here for.

We just gave ourselves too