Medals update: Sweden win women's curling bronze at Beijing 2022

The duel between defending Olympic champions, Sweden, and reigning World Champions, Switzerland, could have been the women's curling final but instead both teams were fighting to take the final podium position on offer – third place and the bronze medal.

It was Sweden who came away with the win on Saturday (19 February) at the National Aquatics Centre, beating Switzerland 9-7 in a tense game that saw the Swiss side come back from 6-2 down in the seventh end to take it to a tenth. With the score 8-7 to the Swedes at the end of the ninth, it was anybody's game.

In the end, it needed four Swedish sweepers on the final stone in the tenth end to guide the stone home to claim the bronze medal, leaving Switzerland in the dreaded fourth place.

Journey to bronze

Despite being the best sides during the round robin, with the Swiss winning eight out of nine games, and the Swedes beaten only twice, the two sides found themselves playing for the bronze medal.

The Swiss lost to Japan in the semi-finals, which set up the bronze medal game against the Swedes.

For their part, the Sweden took part in a curling game for the ages in which Team GB survived a breathless, topsy-turvy clash to come out on top 12-11 in an extra-end thriller to make it to the final against Japan, the team who beat them in the third-place match in PyeongChang.

The women's gold medal-match between Japan and Great Britain takes place on Sunday (20 February) the last day of the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022.

Post game, Switzerland's Silvana Tirinzoni spoke about falling behind in the early ends: "I don't know, we made some unusual mistakes. I have no explanation for that, actually. I felt before the game that we were ready, but then I don't know what happened on the ice."

About her teammates she said: "I love them, they are like my family, you know? We are going through that together - it's easier to go through that together than if you are in a singles sport, I guess. We're going to cry together tonight, I guess."

Sweden's Anna Hasselborg spoke about her emotions on winning bronze: “It’s huge to come here and win a medal. To sum up, being to two Olympics and win two Olympic medals, I think it’s huge. Everyone’s emotions showed how hard we worked for every inch of this tournament and that’s what makes this team great. We work so hard and we never give up.”

Her teammate Agnes Knochenhauer said about how they raised themselves from the disappointment of losing the semi-final match: “Of course last night we were grieving a bit but pretty quick we regroup and look forward. We know how much it would mean to us to win a medal of any colour. And we really woke up with the feeling today that we had a great chance of winning a medal.”

“I just feel so proud I can’t… I’m obviously tearing up, this is huge," said Sara McManus. "It has been so tough the last year with Covid and everything. We are so dammed proud of how we handle all these, I can’t even explain with words."

Sofia Mabergs said on seeing her family on the video screen afterwards: “It’s awesome to have them close, we are used to having them with us. They supported us every step of the way. It means the world to us to have all of our family and friends there. For us, we four we are a family too. But now we are ready to go home, we miss them so much. And to go home with a bronze medal for them and for us it’s huge.”