Winter Olympics: Great Britain men's curlers lose to defending champions USA

Great Britain's men's curlers were beaten 9-7 by Olympic champions the United States in the first of their two matches on Friday.

Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie, and Hammy McMillan fought back from an early 5-2 deficit but the Americans were clinical in the ninth end to take a decisive lead.

It means the British rink have one win and one loss so far.

They next face Norway, at 12:05 GMT, while the women's team play at 06:05.

Eve Muirhead's side take on South Korea in their third match, having recovered from an opening loss to beat Sweden 8-2 on Thursday.

In both events, the 10 competing teams play each other once in a round-robin format, with the top four progressing to the semi-finals.

«The start we had wasn't the best, we gave them a quick lead and you don't want to see that against a team like that,» Mouat said.

«We also didn't finish the game very well. I was struggling to make those key draws that would have forced them into tough ones.»

The USA's gold medal in Pyeonchang four years ago was such a shock that they have not been widely tipped to defend their title.

But skip John Shuster is a wily competitor, and his 100% accuracy in the first five ends put Britain under pressure.

In the third end, Mouat was left with a difficult take out and, when his stone slipped through a gap, the USA were able to get three for a 5-2 lead.

But the Scottish quartet rallied to score two in the fifth end and steal another two in the next to lead 6-5, only for the Americans to regain control.

At 7-7 in the penultimate end, they crafted a chance for four with Shuster's last stone and though they only took two, they went into the last with a two-shot lead.

And a rare error from Mouat ended Britain's hopes of forcing an extra end.