Curling-Canada, Swiss victorious as women's event gets underway

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 12 : Canada's bid for a first women's Olympic gold since 2014 began with a commanding 10-4 win over Denmark in their opening round-robin match as the women's curling competition kicked off at the Winter Games.

Denmark put up a fight in the early stages of the game but Rachel Homan's Canada, the two-times world champions, set up five stones in the house in the fifth end and Danish skip Madeleine Dupont could only take out one.

The four-pointer gave Canada a 7-3 lead, and when they scored another three points in the seventh end, the Danes conceded.

"They're a great team. We've had really good battles with them in the past," Canada's Tracy Fleury said.

"We knew that they would play well today, and they did. We were able to get our rocks in a good spot in the fifth end and put a lot of pressure on them, and I think that was the turning point.

"We were really excited to play our first game today for sure, because we've been over here in Italy for over a week now, so yeah, we were kind of itching to get going."

Beijing bronze medallists Sweden, led by Anna Hasselborg, scored an 8-4 victory over Japan while Silvana Tirinzoni's Switzerland beat hosts Italy 7-4.

The U.S., led by Tabitha Peterson, were leading by just one point heading into the final two ends in their game against South Korea, but eventually closed out a comfortable 8-4 victory.

Teams play nine matches in the round-robin stage, which continues on Thursday. The top four advance to the semi-finals next week.