By Aadi Nair
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 13 (Reuters) – Brad Jacobs’ Canada beat Olympic champions Sweden 8-6 to continue their perfect start to the men’s curling competition at the Winter Games, while hosts Italy lost to Germany.
The win, overshadowed by a heated exchange between the teams’ thirds Marc Kennedy and Oskar Eriksson, followed a 6-3 victory over the United States in the morning session.
“Yeah, it got a little bit heated, no big deal. It’s just men being men,” Jacobs said.
“That’s a huge win for us. You know, to be 3-0 right now and have beaten the teams that we’ve beaten, that’s big.”
Earlier, Joel Retornaz’s Italy defeated Britain 9-7, with their win over the favourites boosting home hopes of a medal.
World champions Britain began the contest on a disastrous note as skip Bruce Mouat attempted a complicated takeout but ended up clearing out a couple of his own team’s stones, giving Italy a steal of four points in the first end.
Despite the poor start, momentum slowly began shifting towards top-ranked Britain and they levelled at 7-7 in the penultimate end before Retornaz clinched two points with the final stone to secure the victory.
However, Italy’s momentum was later stalled when they lost 6-5 to 2024 European champions Germany after an extra end.
Table-topping Canada have three wins from three along with Yannick Schwaller’s Switzerland, who beat China and the Czech Republic.
They are the only two undefeated sides in the men’s competition and meet in the afternoon session on Saturday.
US WOMEN BEAT CANADA
In the women’s event, Tabitha Peterson’s United States team claimed their first-ever Olympic victory over Canada, beating their neighbours 9-8.
Canada, led by Rachel Homan, are two-times world champions and favourites to win gold.
Britain suffered their second defeat in as many games, losing 9-3 to South Korea, while Silvana Tirinzoni’s Switzerland beat China 7-5.
Anna Hasselborg’s Sweden saw out a 6-5 win over Denmark, which moved them top of the standings with three wins in three.
Teams play nine matches in the round-robin stage, which continues on Saturday. The top four advance to the semi-finals next week.
(Reporting by Aadi Nair; Editing by Ken Ferris and Andrew Cawthorne)
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