Today at the Winter Olympics: Great Britain forced to settle for curling silver

Niklas Edin finally got his hand on an Olympic gold medal as Great Britain’s quest for curling glory ended in disappointment.

The 36-year-old Swedish skip, a five-time world champion, led his rink to the top of the podium to complete his set of Olympic medals in a dramatic conclusion to the final as Bruce Mouat and his team took the contest to a decisive extra end.

Having finally opened their medal tally, Britain will hope Brad Hall’s four-man bobsleigh team can add to it after they reached the halfway stage in sixth place, but just 0.31 seconds off the top three.

Dutch speed skater Irene Schouten extended her personal medal haul in Beijing to four, three of them gold, as she added the women’s mass start title to her collection.

Schouten, who had already won the 3,000m and 5,000m events and claimed bronze in the team pursuit, finished ahead of Canada’s Ivanie Blondin and Italian Francesca Lollobrigida.

The men’s 50km cross-country race eventually took place over just 30km after the organisers decided to shorten the course as temperatures plunged to minus 17 degrees in Zhangjiakou.

The decision did not go down well with Great Britain’s Andrew Musgrave, who made his feelings clear in a tweet before going on to finish 12th in the event behind Russian winner Alexander Bolshunov.

Eve Muirhead will attempt to go one better than compatriot Bruce Mouat when she leads her women’s curling team into a gold-medal match with Japan (0105). The British bobsleigh team will attempt to force their way on to the podium in the conclusion of the four-man competition at Yanqing Sliding Centre (0130). Finland play the Russian Olympic Committee in the men’s ice hockey final (0410) before the closing ceremony brings a formal conclusion to the