Winter Olympics: Great Britain's women hammer Sweden as men defeat Italy

Great Britain's women's curlers recovered from an opening loss to beat defending Olympic champions Sweden emphatically 8-2, as the men's side started with a win against Italy.

The men - Bruce Mouat, Hammy McMillan, Bobby Lammie and Grant Hardie - finished strongly to triumph 7-5.

Eve Muirhead, Vicky Wright, Jen Dodds, and Hailey Duff got by the Swedes with ease after taking an early lead.

It followed a tense extra-end defeat by Switzerland earlier on Thursday.

They return to the ice at 06:05 GMT on Friday to play Korea, while the men face the USA (01:05) and Norway (12:00) as they aim to build on a good start.

In both events, the 10 competing teams play each other once in a round-robin format, with the top four progressing to the semi-finals.

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Back-to-back losses - albeit against the current world champions Switzerland and Olympic champions Sweden - would have left Muirhead's rink with little margin for error in their quest to reach the play-offs.

But rather than be adversely affected by the 6-5 extra-end loss to the Swiss - during which Muirhead missed a draw to win with the last stone - they rallied.

A well-constructed fourth end got them a brilliant four for a 5-1 lead against the out-of-sorts Swedes, and they increased their advantage to 8-2 in the seventh to draw the early concession from Anna Hasselborg's rink.

"It felt really good to get that first win and it was a step up from this morning, which is what we wanted," Duff said.

"We put the pressure on and it felt really natural out there."

Mouat's rink start strongly

After a steady start, Britain's men - ranked first in the world - found their groove in the fourth end against Italy, with Mouat playing two clever shots for a score of two, to level the game at 3-3.

They added another two in the seventh, then stole one in the eighth for a 6-4 advantage and, after Italy skip Joel Retornaz cut the deficit to one, Britain held their nerve to take one in the last and clinch the match.

"We're really happy to get that first win because they are really good opposition," Mouat said.

"We really stuck together and played a lot of good shots to get back in the game and find the lead in the last half."

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