Winter Olympics 2022: Eve Muirhead and Bruce Mouat star as curling threatens to come home – Best of Beijing

BEST MOMENTS OF DAY 13 Thrilling Eve, Brilliant Bruce Ad/> Get the bunting out, polish your floor and straighten your broom bristles, curling is coming home. Beijing 2022Dave Ryding: the man who put British skiing on the map – Best of BeijingYESTERDAY AT 16:24 We don’t know what god Eve Muirhead prayed to last night but we’re ready to convert. Heading into the final instalment of the round-robin phrase, there were 16 possible permutations for the semi-final spots.

Only two guaranteed Team GB a spot in the last four. Then Canada built an unassailable lead over Denmark. Suddenly, all the guaranteed routes into the last four for Britain were extinguished.

There was one final hope: the dreaded 16th permutation. GB needed to beat Russian Olympic Committee, hope Switzerland and Sweden saw off Japan and South Korea respectively and, crucially, be in the top two in a confusing three-way draw shot challenge. As the cards started to fall into place, with Sweden fighting back to beat Korea and Switzerland cruising, everyone frantically typed into Google: ‘what the hell is a draw shot challenge?’.

The answer is complex and boring, so we won’t bog ourselves down with all that here, but the outcome was a good one: Muirhead’s rink had scraped into the last four – an episode rightly dubbed Thrilling Eve. Then it was over to the men, already through to the semi-finals and hoping to secure GB’s first medal of a torrid Games in Beijing. Skip Bruce Mouat was best known for his hat prior to the men’s tournament after his viral headwear outshone his meek performances alongside Jen Dodds in the mixed doubles.