Olympics-Curling-Britain bounce back from opening defeats to beat Canada

By Aadi Nair

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Sophie Jackson's Britain beat favourites Canada 7-6 on Saturday to register their first win of the women's curling competition at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics.

Britain are defending champions, though Jennifer Dodds is the only one left from the gold-winning lineup in Beijing with previous skip Eve Muirhead retiring soon after that victory.

They began their campaign with defeats by China and South Korea.

"We just turned our second half into what the first half has been for all of the games, really," Jackson said.

"All four of us shot really well and they had an absolutely amazing game. More of the same, please. We'll go and debrief, talk about what was different in that game and make sure we carry that forward into the rest of the tournament."

Canada are two-times world champions and favourites to win gold, but skip Rachel Homan's record at the Olympics is poor.

She has participated in the past two Games, with her women's team winning just four of their nine matches at the 2018 Olympics to finish outside the qualification spots for the semi-finals.

Four years later, she competed in the mixed doubles alongside John Morris, in which she also missed the cut.

Canada, who last won a women's team gold in 2014 under skip Jennifer Jones, also lost to neighbours the United States for the first time at the Olympics on Friday.

Silvana Tirinzoni's Switzerland, who had won their first two games, lost 7-5 to Sayaka Yoshimura's Japan while hosts Italy suffered their third straight defeat, going down 8-7 to China.

Teams play nine matches in the round-robin stage, which continues on Saturday. The top four advance to the semi-finals next week.