Curling news - Sweden continue European Curling Championship hot streak
BySportsbeat
Updated 20/11/2018 at 18:00 GMT
Reigning men's European Curling champions Sweden continued their barnstorming title defence with a sixth successive round-robin victory in Tallinn.
Curling - Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics - Men's Final - Sweden v U.S. - Gangneung Curling Center - Gangneung, South Korea - February 24, 2018 - Skip Niklas Edin of Sweden delivers the stone
Image credit: Reuters
Niklas Edin's skipped rink came through a tough encounter against Scandinavian rivals Norway with a narrow 5-4 victory as Steffen Walstad's quartet issued a late rallying call.
With one end left, the Norwegians needed two points to force an extra end, but they could only guide one stone into the house to narrowly lose out to the reigning world champions.
"I think we actually played a little bit better the whole game," Edin said after the match.
"We put a lot of pressure on them and what kept them in the game was Steffen Walstad who made some beauties.
"I think if we missed one or two of those, the game is over early, but when he keeps making shots like that we need to play well. I think we're controlling the games so far, so it feels really good."
Scotland had no problems overcoming winless Netherlands as they clinched a dominant 8-5 win over their bottom of the round-robin opponents.
The result leaves world junior champion Bruce Mouat's rink with an impressive five victories from six sessions – only losing out to Sweden in the third round.
After the match, Mouat expressed his delight at his rinks early competition promise, he said: "We had a really good first end and managed to get a good score of three and then lost control a bit.
"But as soon as we came on after the half time break, it was almost as if we were a new team.
"We're starting to put a few good performances together and it's starting to show that we're really here to play."
Italy bounced back in style from their first defeat of the tournament in Estonia with a rousing 9-3 crushing of Germany in just six ends.
Meanwhile 2017 European bronze medallist Switzerland secured back-to-back victories for the first time in the competition as they overcame Poland 9-3 in only seven ends.
Elsewhere, Finland showed their grit to fight back from 6-2 down against Russia to win 8-7 after an extra end.
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