Curling-'Murphy's Law' hits Edin's Sweden as champions bow out with loss

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 19 : Everything that could go wrong for Sweden in their Olympic title defence did go wrong, said skip Niklas Edin after the champions ended their campaign at the Milano Cortina Games with a 10-4 loss to the Czech Republic on Thursday.

Sweden's defeat, their seventh out of nine games, meant they finished the round-robin stage in ninth place. Edin, playing in his fifth Games, failed to qualify for the semi-finals for the first time.

It was a crushing campaign for the Swedes, who have enjoyed immense success in international competitions in the past, winning three Olympic medals - one of every colour - as well as seven world titles and eight European titles.

"It was kind of like Murphy's Law, for us this week. Pretty much everything that could go wrong, went wrong. We just got into the tournament wrong," Edin said.

"We faced a couple of opponents this week that just outplayed us. I think the other seven games that we played, we definitely had a chance. I have to go back and reflect on what happened."

DOUBLE TOUCHING DRAMA

Sweden's campaign was also overshadowed by controversy after they accused Canada of cheating by double touching stones during a game last week, sparking a storm that Edin would rather have avoided.

"Then obviously what happened in the game against Canada took a lot of focus off, there were a lot of negative comments here and there," the 40-year-old said. 

"We didn't really expect that to happen. We just meant to do a friendly comment like, 'just let go of the rock'. But obviously that took a really strange turn and turned half of the curling world against us. It's been tough for sure.

"We wish we could start over and do it again and would have let things kind of unfold differently, I