Sweden and Canada book places in World Curling Championship final

Defending champions Sweden kept their bid for another gold medal in the LGT World Men's Curling Championships on track by beating Italy 8-4 in the semi-finals. Sweden will be facing rivals Canada in Sunday's clash for the world title, while Italy and hosts USA will battle it out for bronze. Ad/> Saturday's semi-final saw Sweden wipe the floor with a struggling Italy, opening the scoring in the second end when skip Niklas Edin played a hit for two points.

CurlingScotland battle into World Championship knockout stages to tee up Saturday showdown in Las VegasYESTERDAY AT 13:30 The Swedes were leading 3-1 going into the fifth end, during which Edin making a pivotal move by playing an angle raise take-out to score four points and extend the lead to 7-1. Italy were unable to recover but showed their resilience as skip Joel Retornaz responded with a point, and took single steals in both the seventh and eighth ends. But the definitive blow came in the ninth end when Edin played a draw to take a final point and win 8-4.

The win gives Edin a chance of taking his fourth successive title and sixth world crown in total. He said: «That was superb. We really focussed hard for the play-offs here.

We were precise with what we did there. »We're really happy that we took the opportunity to score the four points Ð a steal there and it could have been a totally different game. All in all, that was an outstanding performance by all the team members.