GB curlers still in hunt

By BBC Sport Online's Mike Haggerty

Britain's Rhona Martin was the beneficiary as the women's curling event took a dramatic twist in the last session of round-robin play.

Switzerland halted Germany's late charge to qualify directly for the semi-finals, beating them by 10-4 and forcing a set of sudden-death tie-breaker play-off games.

This development resurrects semi-final hopes for Martin, who thought that her earlier 5-7 defeat by Germany had brought her campaign to an end.

While Switzerland were winning in their game, finishing with the flourish of a four in the ninth end, Sweden's Elisabet Gustafsen was completing her programme with a 9-6 victory over Russia.

This result gives her the same won five, lost four record as Britain and Germany, bringing her into play-off contention too.

In these circumstances, rankings among the three teams involved is determined by the results among them in the round-robin.

Earlier in the week Germany beat both Sweden and Britain, while Sweden beat Britain when they met each other.

That means that Germany are ranked first from the trio and therefore the first tie-breaker game will be between Britain and Sweden, with the loser eliminated and the winner going on to face Germany for the last available semi-final slot.

The winner of the second tie-breaker will face table-topping Canada in the semi-final, while second-ranked Switzerland are against third-placed USA in the other semi-final.

Also in the last women's round-robin session, there was a crowd-pleasing second win for Japan, who beat Denmark by 6-5 to give these two teams a joint ranking of eighth in the table.