ROC bags win from China in Olympic men's team curling

BEIJING, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- China lost to the ROC 7-4 in the second round robin session of the men's team curling at Beijing 2022 in the National Aquatics Center here Thursday evening.

The Chinese team, skipped by Ma Xiuyue, has never competed in international curling events before, while an experienced ROC spearheaded by Sergei Glukhov ranked fourth in 2021 World Curling Championships.

China opened the game with the hammer, and scored two points in the first two ends, taking the lead 2-0.

The following three ends saw the two teams winning single point back-and-forth, and ROC stole one more point from China in the sixth end, tying the game 3-3.

Ma chose to blank the seventh end, and scored one point in the following end with last stone advantage to go up by 4-3.

However, Glukhov played a double takeout with the last stone in the ninth end, rushing ahead to override China 7-4. In the last end, facing their opponent's three counting stones in the house, China chose to concede before finishing the game.

Wang Zhiyu, the second of the Chinese team, confessed that their misses led to the failure.

"It disappointed us a little, for sure, but we still have seven games to compete," said the 26-year-old. "Now, we are trying to be cool, and will play our best in the following days."

In other matches of the round robin session, defending champion the United States, skipped by John Shuster who is one of the most experienced Olympians, lost to traditional powerhouse Sweden 7-4, with the latter securing their second victory after beating China the day before.

On the same day, Canada edged Norway 6-5, and Britain won over Italy 7-5.