In another tense day at the Paralympic Games in Sochi Moray’s curlers crumbled to defeat in poor match against Finland – before recovering with a fine win over Norway.
Skip Aileen Nelson, Bob McPherson and Moray’s Gregor Ewan and Jim Gault crumbled to a 13-4 defeat at the hands of Finland this morning, their opponents first win having lost all four of their opening matches.
The GB side found themselves 5 shots down after the first two ends and never recovered, losing five shots in the fifth end before finally lifting their game to score three in the sixth – but it was too little, too late.
However, this afternoon a determined GB quartet dug in to defeat much-fancied Norway 7-3. Underpinning that team performance was a fine display from Lossiemouth’s Jim Gault, who turned in a 77% game accuracy while skipper Aileen Nelson’s recovery was solid at 58%.
In a tight match the Norwegians threatened to recover after closing to 4-3 in the sixth end – but in the seventh their skip Run Lorentsen suffered the misfortune of catching a piece of dirt on his stone that led to his missing his final shot – allowing Neilson to take full advantage and help GB to taking three points.
Next up for is a 5.30am tussle with hosts Russia on Wednesday, with their final round-robin games on Thursday against the United States (5.30am) and China (11.30am). Team GB are currently in third place in the standings with the top four contesting the semi-finals.