Women’s World Curling Championship: Scotland finish eighth after beating Japan then losing to Canada

Scotland beat Japan 7-2 to secure an eighth-place finish at the Women’s Curling Championships before completing their campaign with an 8-2 defeat by unbeaten hosts Canada.

With their play-off hopes already over, Rebecca Morrison’s rink were battling for Olympic qualifying points in their final two round-robin matches.

The Scots bow out with a record of five wins and seven defeats.

Canada top the standings, while holders Switzerland also progress.

Italy, South Korea, Sweden and Denmark join them in the knockout phase.

Had Scotland lost their penultimate game, it would have opened the door for Japan and Norway to finish above them.

However, a three-point steal in the fifth end put them in control against the Japanese and they went on to clinch a comfortable win.

Skip Morrison was “gutted” by the subsequent one-sided defeat to Canada, but took consolation from how her team responded from five straight losses early in the tournament.

“Overall it’s a mixed bag of emotions this week,” she said. “We finished in a great place in that we got lots of wins from our last few games.

“Top seven in points at the Worlds over these two years will qualify for the Olympics, so with Italy being in the play-offs it means we’ve actually finished seventh in terms of Olympic points and we’ve set ourselves up well.

“A good year next year and hopefully GB will get that spot without having to go to the Olympic qualifying event.

“That would be lovely, so we’re delighted to put ourselves in a position that that is possible next year.”