Winter Paralympics: GB wheelchair curlers lose mixed doubles opener to Estonia

Great Britain suffered disappointment with a 10-7 defeat by Estonia in their opening wheelchair curling round-robin match at the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics.

The GB pair of Jo Butterfield and Jason Kean had trailed the world bronze medallists 5-2 after four of the eight ends in the inaugural mixed doubles tournament but pulled two back in end five and scored three in a superb sixth to put them right back in contention.

Estonia led 8-7 behind going into the final end and although GB had the advantage of the hammer in the last, they needed a double takeout but fell short to give their opponents victory.

This is the first time that there has been competitive action at the Games ahead of the opening ceremony, which will take place on Friday.

It fell to Butterfield, who is aiming to become the first Briton to win summer and winter Paralympic golds, and Kean to be the first members of the ParalympicsGB team to start their Games campaign.

The Estonia team of Katlin Riidebach and Ain Villau took advantage of the hammer in the opening end to take two but GB responded to level after two ends, but they could have scored three only for a narrow miss.

However, the Estonians started to take control in the third end with the Britons having to work hard to reduce their opponents to just two, and thanks to a steal in the final end before the break Estonia built a 5-2 lead.

But GB started the second half of the game strongly and took advantage of the hammer to make it 5-4 before an error by Riidebach and a well-weighted stone by Butterfield left them leading for the first time in the match.

A strong seventh end by Estonia allowed them to sneak ahead once more, and in a nervy climax they put in some good work to have two stones in the house at the end which GB were unable to deal with.