Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat spurned the chance to guarantee Team GB’s first medal of the 2026 Winter Olympics – and stirred up bad memories of missing out four years ago – in a surprise 9-3 mixed doubles curling semi-final defeat by Sweden.

Victory would have assured the British pair – who were imperious in the round-robin stage and topped the standings – of at least silver in Cortina.

But they faltered at the wrong time, and instead will come back here on Tuesday (13:05 GMT) to face hosts and defending world and Olympic champions Italy for bronze – live on the BBC – needing victory to avoid the same fate they suffered in 2022.

“We’re really gutted,” Mouat told BBC Sport. “We’ve had such a good week and it was quite exciting for us to go into this game feeling the way we were.

“But to come out and not even play close to the way we wanted to is hard to put into words really. They were the better team today.”

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At the Beijing Games, Dodds and Mouat blew a semi-final lead against Norway before losing to the inspired Swedes in the bronze-medal match.

Both Scots had spoken in the build-up about using that as fuel this time but, although this was a different Swedish pair, the outcome was the same.

The British duo had seen off Rasmus and Isabella Wranaa with relative ease on Friday, but the siblings started strongly and just got stronger in a flawless display.

They restricted GB to one in a scrappy first end, taking two themselves in the second, and stealing another in the third.

Dodds and Mouat were just not quite at it, their shots not quite coming off and the margins going against them. The Swedes could not miss, but the GB pair did. Time and again. Not by much, but by enough.

The fourth end again only brought one, leaving them trailing 3-2 at the interval, but then Dodds – the best women’s player here all week – belatedly found her touch.

The 34-year-old spied the chance to take out two Swedish stones. Mouat and coach Greg Drummond were wary. But Dodds was adamant she could execute. And she did.

The Swedes still had a chance to take one, but Isabella Wranaa erred for once and GB stole one to level the contest.

It turned out to be a brief flash of hope, though. Poor throws from both Dodds and Mouat left them chasing in the sixth end and their ruthless opponents took full advantage by taking five. It was a decisive moment.

Sweden were never likely to lose such a huge lead in the remaining two ends, and so it proved. The British pair, chasing a big score in the seventh, couldn’t find a miracle, gave up one more point, and shook hands with an end to spare.

“We don’t want this to affect our chances of a medal tomorrow so we’ll speak about the things that need to be spoken about and corrected and we’ll come out firing tomorrow,” Dodds told BBC Sport.

Muir misses out on Olympic medal by 0.41 points

Media caption,

Muir narrowly misses out on medal in slopestyle

ByKatie Falkingham

BBC Sport Senior Journalist in Livigno

Freestyle skier Kirsty Muir missed out on Great Britain’s first medal of the 2026 Winter Olympics by the narrowest of margins with a fourth-place finish in the women’s slopestyle.

Muir scored 76.05 points with a brilliant third run, finishing only 0.41 behind Canadian bronze medallist Megan Oldham at Livigno Snow Park.

Having fallen on the penultimate jump of her opening run, Muir – who had qualified third – sat in sixth after her second.

But despite a vastly improved performance on her final attempt, a crestfallen Muir was left wanting more on the biggest stage.

“I put it out there on every run,” the 21-year-old told BBC Sport.

“I was so proud to put one down. I struggled to accept how close it was, but I know I’ve got more in me.”

In a final that demonstrated the strength of women’s freestyle skiing, Mathilde Gremaud successfully defended her Olympic title by only 0.38 points.

China’s Eileen Gu – the world’s fourth highest-paid female athlete in 2025 but arguably a bigger star off the slopes through her modelling and brand endorsements – took silver, but crashed on her final run to allow Gremaud a victory lap.

Gremaud soaked up her moment, a Switzerland flag tied around her neck and billowing in the wind as she floated down the course.

Media caption,

‘I struggled to accept how close it was’ – Muir reacts to missing out on medal

Muir is one of Team GB’s best medal hopes at the Milan-Cortina Games, and has another shot at the podium when she competes in the big air starting on Saturday.

“I just need to have a moment to process. I don’t want to dwell on it too much,” she mentioned.

“I’ve got at least a day or so until I hit the big air. I’m going to go through this, accept it and try and find the positives that I can from it, and then completely reset because the big air is just a completely different competition.”

Four years ago in Beijing, Scotland’s Muir was GB’s youngest competitor at 17 and finished fifth in the big air and eighth in the slopestyle.

After those Games, Muir achieved three World Cup podiums, but in December 2023 an MRI scan showed she had been competing with a fully torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL).

An operation followed in early 2024, as well as surgery on a shoulder problem that had troubled her for some time.

Eleven months later she was back on snow, and her maiden World Cup gold arrived in Tignes in March 2025.

Two more have followed this season, as well as slopestyle gold and big air silver at the invitation-only X Games on the eve of the Olympics.

Muir was likely to be back at the snow park to watch team-mate and close friend Mia Brookes tackle the snowboard big air final, which starts at 18:30 GMT.

Brookes, one of the biggest names in her sport as a world champion and two-time X Games gold medallist, qualified in third.

Curlers Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds could secure a place in the gold medal mixed doubles final when they face Sweden in the semi-final in Milan from 17:05.

Media caption,

Gremaud beats Gu to become back-to-back Olympic champion

Winter Olympics 2026

6-22 February

Milan-Cortina

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