Swiss Don’t Miss for Olympic Curling Bronze

Switzerland’s Yannick Schwaller thumped Norway’s Magnus Ramsfjell 9-1 to win men’s Olympic bronze at the Cortina Olympic Curling Stadium on Friday night.

Trading 6-1 at the end of the ninth end, Ramsfjell performed a crowd-pleasing “spin-o-rama” delivery – no small feat for a 6’4” curling athlete – with his final stone and one of his sweepers knocked the stone onto its correct line for a faux score of one.

Official rules made it a Swiss count of three for an even more inflated final score.

Nothing worked for Ramsfjell’s men as the Swiss were too strong from the outset, taking control of the game with three points in the second end and a steal of one in the third. 

Switzerland led 4-1 at the break and after a coupe of blank ends, picked up another deuce in the eighth for a 6-1 lead.

Switzerland lost yesterday’s semifinal round to Great Britain’s Bruce Mouat, while the Norwegians fell to Canada’s Brad Jacobs.

Canada and Great Britain battle for gold on Saturday.

Schwaller (skip and third stones) was supported by fourth Benoit Schwarz-van Berkel, second Sven Michel, lead Pablo Lachat-Couchepin and alternate Kim Schwaller.

“We’re not going to lie, yesterday is a huge disappointment,” said Schwarz-van Berkel. “Being millimetres away, how can you not be disappointed? We had it in our hands.

However…?

“An Olympic medal is something very special for anyone here who has the honour and a chance to grab one,” he concluded. “It's something really amazing.”

“We’re proud of what we did, making it to the semifinals for the first time in 16 years for Norway,” said Ramsfjell, whose father won Olympic bronze at Nagano 1998. “We’re very happy with what we achieved this week.”

On the final shot of the match:

“We’ve had fun all week, and we’ve tried to show that, have everyone watching and following us, feel the engagement, feel the fun we're having on the ice. This final game wasn’t quite it. We were a bit more down than usual, and we wanted to wrap it up with a nice, funny moment. 

“And that's why we chose to do that ‘spin-o-rama.’ I’ll remember that for a long time.”

Earlier in the week, the Norwegians paid tribute to Thomas Ulrsrud by donning the infamous Pants for one match, against Sweden.

So here’s one more look…