THE GREAT BRITAIN women’s curling team suffered a controversial defeat to Sweden at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
With the game in an extra end at 6-6, Great Britain skip Eve Muirhead was adjudged to have not released her final stone before the hogline, meaning it was void. Sweden then went on to clinch a 8-6 victory.
The decision was based on the testing of red light technology, which alerts referees to any incidents of foul play.
Sky Sports reports that video replays of the incident are ‘inconclusive,’ while BBC Sport writes that the footage suggests she ‘may have accidentally brushed the stone after release once it had crossed the hogline,’ thus causing the red light to come on.
Team GB suffered a controversial extra end defeat to Sweden 😕
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) February 18, 2018
Looks like we might need to get VAR in Curling pic.twitter.com/ZJBe0OldJ4
Speaking to BBC Sport afterwards, a disappointed Muirhead said:
“It was the first stone I’ve probably ever hogged in my life. There’s nothing we can do. We have to move on.
“I don’t know [whether it did cross the line]. If I did, I’d be out there telling them. When something like that happens, it makes it very tough to take and it’s gutting it finished that way.”
The result leaves team GB on three wins out of six with three more round-robin matches to play.
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