Portugal Colonial - Sweden's curlers deny Britain a first Beijing Winter Olympics gold

The disappointed British team at least had the consolation of winning Britain's first medal of the Games and a tweet of congratulations from the royal family saying "you should be incredibly proud of your performance this week".

Swedish skip Niklas Edin has finished fourth and won bronze and silver medals in previous Games, so he was overjoyed to finally call himself an Olympic champion.

"God, it's nice. It's obviously been an incredibly long journey with pretty disappointing defeats in a couple of the previous Games," the 36-year-old said.

"It feels so crazy, I almost had to ask someone before I came here, 'We have won, right?"

British skipper Bruce Mouat told the BBC: "It's still pretty raw. That's going to the case for quite a while."

Team GB have one more chance to win an elusive gold with the British women's quartet, skippered by Eve Muirhead.

They take on Japan in the final in the National Aquatics Centre, nicknamed the "Ice Cube", on Sunday.

J.V.Jacinto--PC