Curling: Martin suffers rare taste of defeat

Rhona Martin's Olympic champions lost their final round-robin tie of the Scottish Golden League and National Championships at Glasgow Braehead Arena yesterday to Edith Loudon's squad from Perth.

Loudon, battling for a place in the semi-finals, won 6-3, ending the nine-match run of success for Martin's quartet.

On Monday Martin criticised the 8am start for this final round of the series but yesterday she blamed nothing but the opposition for their defeat.

"We have no excuses," she said. "We were outplayed. They put the right shots in place at the right time. They won fair and square."

Martin was disappointed after a run of poor end-saving shots from the skip had failed to find their target. She opened the scoring stealing a single against advantage at the third end. But after Loudon levelled at the fourth, the Greenacres squad hit deep trouble, Loudon stealing four over the next three ends to lead 5-1.

Scottish Championships: (Braehead Arena, Glasgow) Men's round robin 6: P de Boer (Gogar) bt D Dryburgh (Kirkcaldy) 6-5; B Kelly (Gogar) bt J Strang (Ayr) 9-6; W Smith (Inverness) bt J Hamilton (Gogar) 7-6; D Murdoch (Lockerbie) bt S Byers (Lockerbie) 9-7; P Smith (Perth) bt T Brewster (Greenacres) 8-3. Women's round robin 14: J Lockhart (Aberdeen) bt R Simms (Lockerbie) 4-3; E Loudon (Perth) bt R Martin (Greenacres) 6-3; W Bell (Gogar) bt A Kinghorn (Inverness) 8-3; G Howard (Greenacres) bt K Wood (Letham Grange) 7-5. Final round-robin positions: 1 Martin (won 11, lost 3); 2 Lockhart (9, 5); 3= Wood, Loudon (8, 6); 5= Bell, Howard (7, 7); 7= Kinghorn, Simms (3 11).