Winter Paralympics: Great Britain’s wheelchair footballers lose again

Great Britain’s mixed wheelchair curling team remains rooted at the foot of the table at the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics with just one win from eight group stage matches following defeats to China and Latvia on Wednesday.

Team GB’s slim hopes of reaching the semi-finals were dashed on Tuesday when they lost to Italy, combined with China’s win over Latvia, meaning they could not qualify for the knockout stage.

And although Great Britain played well in the first six matches against the Chinese, who are two-time defending champions, on Wednesday morning in Cortina, a harrowing seventh end saw their rivals steal three goals to take a 9-4 lead and bring an early end to proceedings.

After conceding four goals in Wednesday night’s opener against Latvia, who had won two of their seven games, GB stabilized things but were 5-4 down after four games.

Despite getting into good positions, they couldn’t make the shots they wanted in the crucial times and Latvia took the lead three times in the next two ends and held on to win 8-5.

Britain’s last match in the disappointing tournament will be against Norway on Thursday (17:35 GMT).