Russia triumph at World Mixed Curling Championships

Both Russia and Sweden were undefeated going into the gold-medal game, setting things up for a narrow clash.

And so it proved with the opening end blanked with the scores then tied at 1-1 after the third end.

The fourth end would prove to be crucial to the final outcome though with Sweden skip Kristian Lindstroem forced to attempt a difficult double takeout with his last stone facing two Russian shot stones. He was only able to clear one and Russian skip Aleksandr Krushelnitckii drew into the four foot for two points.

There would be no more than single points scored in each end throughout the remainder of the game – Sweden scored a single in the fifth end and then forced a single steal in the sixth to level at 3-3 before Russia scored a single with an open hit.

However, with Sweden scoring a single in the eighth, the scores were tied at 4-4 and the extra end came into play.

After another close play, Krushelnitckii was left with the chance of a single point, and he duly took the opportunity to seal a 5-4 win and clinch the World Championship title.

He said: "I feel lots of emotions and I can't express it in words. At the last World Championship we won, at the mixed doubles in Karlstad, I wasn't as happy as I am now.

"Here everything is super, great organisation, massive support of the spectators, everything is just amazing."

Bronze went to Scotland after they overcame Korea 8-4 in their medal game.

Scotland skip Cameron Bryce said: "It's good. It's always good to bounce back after a defeat in the morning.

"We wanted to make sure we went home to Scotland with a medal. Initially we wanted to go in, get the early score and put the pressure on Korea, but we started off slow so we had do it the difficult way and steal our way through.

"We had a couple of good steals in the fourth and fifth that really helped us. We played really good and bronze is good now, but we were really disappointed this morning. After a couple of days we'll be really happy with our bronze."

© Sportsbeat 2016