Winter Olympics 2022 - Great Britain's women's curlers may need help from other rinks to qualify for semi-finals

The fate of Great Britain’s women’s curlers at the Beijing Winter Olympics may be out of their hands after an unexpected 8-4 defeat to China. GB now not only need to win their final round robin fixture against the Russian Olympic Committee but to hope other results fall in their favour as well.

Ad/> Eve Muirhead’s rink currently sit joint-fifth in the standings, level with the United States, with the top four progressing to the semi-finals. Beijing 2022'Crushing disappointment' — GB's curling medal hopes in balance after defeat to China3 HOURS AGO A win against ROC, which is expected, would take them to five wins and four losses, but if any teams are still tied then qualification will be based on head-to-head results.

Looking at the teams sitting around GB in the standings, they have beaten Japan and the USA but lost to Canada and South Korea – so if qualification is to come down to head-to-heads, Britain’s fate is far from certain. China, despite having already seen their qualification hopes dashed before Wednesday's game, were superb against Britain.

Team GB through to men's semis after bringing Sweden's unbeaten run to an end GB keep women’s curling semi-final hopes alive by thrashing Japan GB skip Muirhead was quick to commend her rink’s impressive opponents, saying they played «very well». «Unfortunately we just didn’t get the inches here and there that were on our side,” she told BBC Sport.

“We weren't bad out there, overall we can't be too disappointed for that performance; we gave ourselves a lot of chances but unfortunately didn’t manage to finish it off. »All we can do is concentrate on ourselves, fingers crossed, we need to recharge and come back tomorrow against ROC.” Frustratingly, GB were able to storm to a