Winter Olympics closing ceremony LIVE: Team GB women win first gold medal in curling as Beijing Games end

Hammy McMillan Jr on returning in four years for Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo: “That’s the plan. We are putting a team together, this was the first goal, now we realised we can stand on top of the podium. We’re fighting harder for Milan.

“This is not the end for us. I’m excited to see what this team can do.”

Hammy McMillan Jr: “It started to sink in what we’ve achieved. It’s pretty cool.

Bruce Mouat: “That’s topped them all, we can’t beat her. The amount of messages is incredible.

“We cannot thank everybody enough. We felt it all the way here. We heard you screaming.

“She was overcome with emotion. Incredible to hear.”

Hammy McMillan Jr: “It started to sink in what we’ve achieved. It’s pretty cool.

Bruce Mouat: “That’s topped them all, we can’t beat her. The amount of messages is incredible.

“We cannot thank everybody enough. We felt it all the way here. We heard you screaming.

“She was overcome with emotion. Incredible to hear.”

And don’t forget Brad Hall’s British four-man bobsleigh team, they will have their third run (01:30) and fourth run (03:20) to finish off the event.

Hall, Greg Cackett, Nick Gleeson and Taylor Lawrence have proven their worth with podium finishes at the World Cup. They must now elevate themselves from sixth after the first two runs.

Here we go then, the final countdown to a potentially historic morning for Team GB in Beijing.

They’ve left it late, but there’s a gold up for grabs for the British women in the curling.

Vicky Wright has guaranteed a medal to match her fiancé but it’s golden bragging rights she really wants.

Eight years ago Wright watched as Greg Drummond won silver as part of David Murdoch’s men’s rink in Sochi.

Now he’s back at home, having returned from coaching duties in Beijing with Team GB’s mixed doubles rink, ready to watch her go for gold against Japan on Sunday.

“Of course I want to go one better - we’re competitive,” joked Wright. “Before I came out I said I was coming back with the go so I could get bragging rights in the house!

“He’s been showing off his Olympic medal for eight years now, I think it’s my turn now.”

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Great Britain’s men’s curling team were forced to settle for Olympic silver after succumbing to the “perfect” game by decorated Swedish skip Niklas Edin at the National Aquatics Centre in Beijing.

David Murdoch paid tribute to the 36-year-old Swede, who slowly strangled the life of the British challenge and chiselled a 5-4 extra-end win that added gold to his two previous Olympic medals and five world championship titles.

“You saw there the perfect display of curling, and it’s something we’ve seen from him before,” said British coach Murdoch, a silver medallist himself in Sochi in 2014. “He’s just so clinical and when he makes shots like that he’s really tough to beat.”

Defending champion Nana Takagi crashed out at the semifinal of the women’s mass start speedskating on Saturday, falling on the same corner that she slipped on at the women’s team pursuit final at the Beijing Olympics.

Takagi, who won the inaugural mass start competition in Pyeongchang four years ago, was leading the pack when she slipped on the very last corner with the finish line in sight.

The slip was reminiscent of her performance at the women’s team pursuit final, where a fall on the same corner landed the leading Japanese team a silver and handed the gold to their rival Canadians.

The audience groaned as they saw her slip and Takagi looked distraught as she watched the pack speed away.

She picked herself up and skated to the finish line far behind the rest, just as she had in the team pursuit. The 29-year-old did not qualify for the final.

A stomach complaint prompted Norwegian skier Johannes Klaebo to cut short his final attempt at winning gold in the men’s 50 km freestyle mass start on Saturday at the Beijing Games, ending an otherwise successful Olympics on a sour note.

Klaebo, who stopped his race just after the 20 km mark, told reporters he had contracted a stomach bug that had derailed his preparations and that he had only decided to compete when the race was shortened to 30km from 50km because of high winds.

“I have been being more on the toilet than I have been sleeping the last couple of days,” Klaebo said bluntly. “Yesterday I didn’t manage to go to the stadium at all, I just lay down in the bed and was totally flat out.

“I’ve been struggling a lot with the stomach, that was the problem, for sure, so it’s sad to have this type of finish to the Olympics,” he added.

Klaebo said he was happy overall with his haul of two gold medals, a silver and a bronze from the Beijing Games.

“I’m for sure really satisfied with the Olympics, especially the 15k, which was a good race for me and defending the sprint (that he won in 2018) and the team (sprint gold), so I would say it’s been really nice, and I hope we can manage to do more in the future,” he said.

The 25-year-old paid tribute to teammate Simen Hegstad Krueger, who bounced back from a positive COVID-19 test to take a bronze medal in his only race of the Games.

“It’s very impressive we all know what he can do in the higher altitude like we are here, that’s something he managed really, really good,” Klaebo said.

“So for him to take a bronze medal today. It’s really impressive and something he really really deserves.”

Alexander Bolshunov brushed off fears of frostbite to take gold for the Russian Olympic Committee in the men’s 50km freestyle race on Saturday, saying the harder the conditions, the easier it was for him and his team.

The race was put back by an hour and cut to 30km due to bitterly cold temperatures and biting winds at the National Cross-Country Centre but the changes did not bother Bolshunov, who would have preferred to go the full distance.

“I wouldn’t exactly feel good with this kind of weather, but I did say that the more challenging it is, the easier it is for us (the Russian team),” he told reporters.

“When I found out that the race would be shortened, I was a bit upset, I was getting ready for 50km but then I understand with the gusty wind like that and freezing temperatures, the outcome wouldn’t have been as good, possibly.

“Then as we started skiing we eventually got warmer, picked up the pace but, all in all, I can say in retrospect we could have done all 50 kilometres.”

Conditions improved as the afternoon wore on, making for a brilliant spectacle as the Russians battled it out with their Norwegian rivals as Simen Hegstad Krueger took the bronze medal.

“In the morning the weather was harder, the wind was stronger and the temperature was colder. When we started the race, the weather got a bit better,” said Bolshunov, who set a record of five cross-country medals at a single Winter Olympics.

Silver medallist Ivan Yakimushkin said the distance did not matter and that there was only going to be one winner in the final men’s race of the Games.

“Alex wanted to go the full distance and he would have won anyway, but on a longer distance he would have been much more uncomfortable and he would have to wait for us and get cold,” he said.