Curling stars Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds fire warning shot to rivals after slipping to first defeat at Beijing 2022

Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds want to start fighting fire with fire on the Olympic ice after falling to their first mixed doubles defeat in Beijing.

Having seen off world bronze medallists Sweden and reigning Olympic champions Canada, 2018 silver medallists Switzerland proved a step too far.

Just as in the 6-4 Canada success, the crucial draw shot came down to Dodds but she narrowly missed the mark to hand the Swiss an 8-7 victory at the Ice Cube.

Mouat said: “That was a tough game for me personally, I think I struggled a wee bit more than I had done in the first two games.

“Taking two wins from the first three games, especially with the teams that we started with, we are very happy with.

“So we are just trying to remain positive even though we’ve just had a tough loss.

"We knew we were going to have to come out and play really well against them and to be honest, I think we are just going to have to face the fact that every team that we are playing here is going to throw everything at us and we are going to have to do the same to them."

Dodds and Mouat are world champions and favourites for gold and it is showing, both in their own play and that of opponents at the repurposed Aquatics Centre in the Chinese capital.

Switzerland's Jenny Perret and Martin Rios were determined to peg the Scottish pair back from the start and prevent them from pulling away, opening up a 6-3 lead at the halfway point.

Dodds and Mouat used their powerplay, allowing them to position their opening stones in the wide areas of the house, to good effect, scoring three in the seventh to make it 7-7 before Dodds was narrowly unable to land the last.

“That last shot I just didn’t give it as much release as I wanted," she said. "Bruce tried his hardest