Early defeat for curlers

David Murdoch's Great Britain side got off to a faltering start in their quest for Winter Olympics curling gold as they suffered a shock 6-4 defeat against Sweden.

Murdoch's reigning world champions were playing catch-up after falling behind on the second end of the first of nine round robin matches at the Vancouver Olympic Centre.

Skipped by Niklas Edin, the Swedes built a 5-2 lead and, although Murdoch's men pulled it back to 5-4, the Swedes were gifted victory on the final end by a heavy draw from Murdoch on the penultimate shot.

Britain's Zoe Gillings booked a place in the women's snowboard cross semi-finals on Cypress Mountain.

In her quarter-final Gillings, ranked 11th in the SBX World Cup standings this season, finished second behind Swiss Mellie Francon to ensure a semi-final spot.

Gillings, from the Isle of Man, had qualified in eighth place for the last 16 despite a second run fall. Her first run time of one minute, 27.93 seconds was enough to take her through.

The qualifying session had been delayed by two hours as fog enveloped the Cypress Mountain course and Gillings had to wait even longer when she was held at the gate as the mist rolled in again.

Visibility was still far from perfect on some sections of the course when she did start but her time was good enough for Gillings to bail out of her second run following her fall rather than record a time and she did not stop to talk to reporters before heading back to the start line to prepare for the quarter-finals.

Francon clocked the two fastest times of the qualification run, her first effort in 1:24.43 the quicker of the pair, ahead of American Lindsey Jacobellis (1:25.41) with Canada's Maelle Ricker third fastest in 1:25.45.