Reigning world champion Bingyu Wang and her rink from China responded positively after losing their first game to Great Britain earlier Wednesday, and redeemed themselves by defeating Switzerland 8-6 in the third session of the curling round robin in Vancouver.
“It’s all good,” China’s Canadian coach Dan Rafael told NBC. “We didn’t expect to go undefeated anyway – there is no chance of that.”
In their later game against Switzerland, the Chinese scored four in the fifth end, then stole one in the eighth to go ahead 7-4.
The Swiss, who won the silver medal in Torino 2006, scored two in the ninth so China went into the tenth end, with the hammer, up 7-6.
Mirjam Ott, Switzerland’s skip, completed a take out and sat five on her last shot. She then watched as Wang countered with a take out of her own to score a single point and win the game.
The win brings China’s record to 1-1 while the Swiss drop to 0-3.
Switzerland is ranked third in the world but have played number one, Canada, two, Sweden and four, China in the tournament so far.
The Chinese rink are winter Olympic rookies but they were one of the favourites teams to win coming into the tournament.
China will now play the Japanese on Thursday when both teams look to improve their 1-1 record. Japan lost to Canada 7-6 on Wednesday.
Sweden undefeated
The Swedish remained perfect with a 3-0 record after beating Eve Muirhead and her British squad 6-4.
The defending Olympic champions cleared the guards set up by the Brits in the tenth end and skip Anette Norberg completed a hit and roll to ensure the point and the win.
Their undefeated record won’t be challenged Thursday as the Swedes get the day off. Great Britain plays Russia, who also has a 1-1 record.
Led by 23-year-old skip Liudmila Privivkova, Russia scored four points in the last three ends to beat Denmark 7-3. The Danes went up 2-1 in the fourth end but only scored one more point in the next six.
The Danish team falls to 0-2.