Men's curling team guarantee Britain a Beijing Winter Olympics medal after beating USA

Britain are guaranteed a medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics after the men's curling team won their semi-final 8-4 against USA.

Bruce Mouat's team made a poor start to the contest with USA stealing two in the opening end, but they composed themselves and led by one at the half-way stage.

That prompted the Americans to blank three ends with Britain expertly offering them no more than a one in each of them.

As the pressure built, American skip John Shuster became rattled, and deliberately allowed Britain to steal one in the ninth.

That meant Britain took a 6-4 lead into the tenth, and brilliant defence once again left Shuster with an almost impossible task with their final stone.

His take-out went wrong, meaning Britain are not guaranteed at least a silver.

"The last two weeks, especially for myself, has been a bit of a roller coaster so this is very special," Mouat told BBC Sport.

"I'm so excited to be able to share the moment with the guys and the celebration at the end was pure elation. I don't think I can sum it up any other way.

"I am excited to play that game and we have got a day off tomorrow. Just looking forward to getting on the ice again and going for that gold.

"We knew that we were going to have two games today so we came out to win this morning to keep momentum going and built that into the semi-final, that is exactly what we needed to do."

Great Britain's women's team will now hope to follow suit tomorrow when they play their semi-final against Sweden.