Winter Olympics: GB women curlers' play-off hopes in danger after China loss

Great Britain's women's curlers' hopes of reaching the semi-finals of the Winter Olympics are in danger after slipping to a shock 8-4 loss to China.

Eve Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds, and Hailey Duff needed to beat the Chinese — and the Russian Olympic Committee in their final game — to be fairly sure of progressing.

But the Chinese took three in the ninth end to ultimately clinch victory.

Britain now need to beat ROC and rely on results elsewhere.

A win in that final round-robin match on Thursday (06:05 GMT) would take them to five wins and four defeats, and any places left for teams with that record would be decided on head-to-head.

Only the top four teams progress to the next round.

China had only won two of their seven matches, so Muirhead's rink were in a good position to take control of their own destiny.

However, a cagey match was turned in the host nation's favour when skip Wang Rui teed up — and then executed — a final shot for three in the ninth end.

That blow had followed Muirhead's stone in the eighth spinning just wide to limit Britain to a score of one, rather than two, to emphasise the fine margins in the match.

China's three took the score from 4-4, to 7-4, and suddenly Britain's clear advantage of having the hammer in the last end was wiped out by a daunting deficit.

Even then, Muirhead was left with a difficult double take out with the last stone to try and salvage an extra end, but again her rock just slid by.