Winter Paralympics 2026: Great Britain’s wheelchair footballers beat USA for second straight win

The morning session of wheelchair curling was the only sporting event at the Games on Friday, with the opening ceremony scheduled to take place in Verona from 19:00 GMT.

Great Britain’s next match in mixed doubles is against Japan on Saturday (13:35).

“It’s been quite a busy race over the last couple of days, so it’s good to have some time off,” Butterfield said.

“We’ll recover a little and might watch part of the opening ceremony, but we’ll make sure we go to bed early.”

Regarding the next opponent, Japan, Butterfield added: “It will not be an easy battle. They are the current world champions, so we know that they are capable of playing well.

“But we have grown in this competition and I think that is our strength.

“In the last two games, we’ve been more like ourselves. We’ve bounced off each other well, we’ve got good communication there, and if we play the way we can play, we should do well.”

Also on Saturday, Great Britain will play twice on the first day of competition in the four-man wheelchair curling mixed tag team event.

They start against Slovakia (08:35) before facing the USA in their second round match today (17:35).