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

It wasn’t all easy, but Eve Muirhead’s Team GB have made it through to the semi-finals of the women’s curling tournament after advancing from the round-robin phase.

Two defeats in their opening three matches gave the team an uphill task, but they made it through in dramatic fashion by beating ROC and other results going their way.

Now, Muirhead’s side face Sweden. They had an 8-2 win over the Swedes in their round-robin match. Their opponents won every other match in the group phase, however, apart from a defeat to China.

Team GB 5-6 Switzerland

Team GB 8-2 Sweden

Team GB 7-9 South Korea

Team GB 10-5 USA

Team GB 7-2 Denmark

Team GB 3-7 Canada

Team GB 10-4 Japan

Team GB 4-8 China

Team GB 9-4 ROC

Team GB ?-? Sweden

The official USA Curling rulebook states that each curling stone cannot be greater than 44 pounds (19.96kg) in weight, and no less than 38 pounds (17.24kg). The handle is included as part of the weight.

The stone’s circumference cannot exceed 36 inches (91.4cm) and cannot exceed 4.5 inches (11.43cm) in height.

The stones are made of a special type of granite, which is found on the island of Ailsa Craig in Scotland.

The lights are a tracking system to ensure the athletes release the stone before the first hog line - the red line at both ends where both teams must release the stone before passing it.

During Team USA’s second game against Italy, Stefania Constantini was penalised with a hogline violation in the sixth end.

A heat sensor is embedded into the ice and will be triggered if your hand continues to hold onto the handle while breaching the line, meaning each stone has batteries to power these sensors.

Failure to release your hand before the line will turn the lights red and that team will be forced to remove it from play.

It rarely happens at this elite level, but such is the pressure at the Winter Olympics, it can occasionally happen.

The hammer is a crucial part of curling.

The team that has the hammer is able to throw the final stone of each end, generally a significant advantage, with all other stones thrown and the current scoring situation clear.

Whichever team doesn’t score during an end will get the hammer in the next round - this sometimes causes teams to avoid scoring just a single point, instead preferring to retain the hammer and score more heavily in the next end.

It is retained if neither team scores.

Twenty years after Rhona Martin sent down her famous ‘Stone of Destiny’, Great Britain’s men’s curling team have sealed a shot at Olympic gold with a nerve-shredding 8-4 semi-final win over the United States in Beijing.

Martin watched on from her BBC commentary booth as John Shuster’s missed takeout attempt in the final end guaranteed Bruce Mouat’s men a place in the final, where they will meet world champions Sweden on Saturday.

Johannes Thingnes Boe has won Norway their 15th gold medal of the Winter Olympics after prevailing in the men’s 15km mass start event.

It’s Boe’s fourth gold of the Games, and fifth medal overall, capping a dominant two weeks in the biathlon for Norway.

Boe had a winning margin of 40 seconds over Sweden’s Martin Ponsiluoma and Norway’s Vetle Sjastad Christiansen.

As Thomas Krol won gold to continue the Netherlands’ strong performance in the speed skating in Beijing, Team GB’s Cornelius Kersten finished ninth.

It brings an end to Kersten’s Winter Olympics, after ending Britain’s long wait for a long-track speed skating participant at the Games.

Ninth in the 1000m was his best finish of the three events he was entered in, following 19th in the 1500m and 25th in the 500m.

Montell Douglas will make history today in Beijing as the first woman to compete in both a summer and winter Games for Great Britain.

Douglas was part of the 4x100m relay team in Beijing in 2008 and returns today in the bobsleigh.

“I’m a big believer in if you can see it, you can achieve it,” Douglas said before flying out to China.

“And I’m hoping now people will see me and go, ‘Oh, gosh, the first British woman wasn’t just a British woman, but the black community will also go, ‘that’s a black person that we can relate to’, especially when they just see winter sport as a white-dominated world.”

Thomas Krol of the Netherlands won gold in the men’s speed skating 1000 metres at the Beijing Olympics on Friday.

Laurent Dubreuil of Canada claimed silver and Haavard Holmefjord Lorentzen of Norway took bronze.

“I always say that the round-robin is one competition and the playoffs is another one,” said Muirhead. “There are things we need to reset but I definitely think that as a team, we are a playoffs team.

“We’ve proven that we’re capable of winning that gold medal as a group, so we will go hard tomorrow.”