2026 Olympic Games: Canada regains lead over Great Britain in back-and-forth in men's gold-medal curling match

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After 10 tense matches of skill and concentration under pressure, it comes down to this for skip Brad Jacobs and his men's curling team: the Olympic gold-medal decider.

All the veteran Calgary-based team of Jacobs, Brett Gallant, Ben Hebert and freshly minted meme Marc Kennedy have to do is beat world No. 1 Great Britain.

They've already done that in the preliminary round, sinking Bruce Mouat's young team 9-5, so … no problem, right? Maybe not.

Experience weighs heavily in Canada's favour, with Jacobs hoping to regain the Olympic title he won at Sochi 2014, the last time Canada's men won curling gold. Kennedy and Hebert won gold in Vancouver in 2010, while Gallant, the baby of the team at 36, won bronze at Beijing 2022.

"It says a lot about the determination they have to get here again," said Canadian coach Paul Webster after the Norway match.

The third end brought a slight momentum shift in this game. Jacobs delivered a beauty with the final stone of the end to remove Great Britain's shot stone and score two. 

Just a great end of curling by the Canadians. They put two up on the board and take a 3-2 lead on Great Britain. 

To the fourth end we go. The Brits have the hammer.

In the second, Britain's third Grant Hardie fired a heavyweight double with his first shot to remove two Canadian stones from the rings and roll his shooter behind protection. 

Team Canada struggled to respond, leaving Mouat with an open draw to score two, taking the lead and flipping last-rock advantage in their favour.

The Brits score two in the second end and take a 2-1 lead.

Jacobs and company just a little off to start the game. The margins are going to be so slim in this game.

A single to start for the Canadians. This is going to be a heavyweight tilt. 

Great Britain has the hammer in the second end.

Canada's Olympic curling controversy, explained

Team Canada’s men’s and women’s Olympic curling teams found themselves at the centre of a controversy after the Sweden’s men’s and Switzerland women’s teams accused Canada of double touching the rock last Friday and Saturday. Both Team Rachel Homan and Team Brad Jacobs have denied the allegations. Former Olympic curling champion Jennifer Jones explains the cheating accusations and what they mean.

The controversy over whether some Canadian curlers during the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics have been guilty of "double-touching" the stone after its release has also raised the question: does it make any difference?

"No. The double-touching that I've seen has been incidental contact, and that's fingers brushing, or hand brushing, on a 40-pound piece of granite," said Eugene Hritzuk, a Canadian curler based in Saskatoon who has been involved in competitive curling and coaching for more than 60 years.

"What can fingers brushing against a 40-pound piece of granite do in any event? You need the palm on your hand against that stone to do anything."

The issue came up during a round robin match last week. Swedish curler Oskar Eriksson accused Kennedy of breaking the rules by touching the granite of the stone with his finger after he let go of the rock.

That resulted in a fiery, profanity-laced exchange on the ice between Kennedy and Eriksson.

This is a clash of the titans for men's curling gold. The Canadian foursome has history on the line, but so do their opponents from Great Britain.

Team GB hasn't won gold in men's curling since 1924 and is looking to avenge a loss to Sweden in the gold medal game four years ago in Beijing.

Mouat, the steely-eyed, stoic skip, is ruthless on the ice, coming up with brilliant shots when it matters most. During games, he's quiet and rarely shows emotions — but not because he isn't feeling them. Mouat said he burns inside while he's playing, especially when he misses a shot or loses a game. 

"It's not external — like, I'm not smashing things. It's more internal," he told me before the  Games. "I just go in my shell a bit and tell myself that I'm a bit of an idiot. I put a lot of pressure on myself. 

"Obviously, it's the skip of a team. A lot of the time, it comes down to if I play well."

That designation belongs to the lads from the birthplace of the sport. Mouat and his Scottish rink have been mowing down the competition in jaw-dropping fashion for more than two years. 

They've won two of the last three men's world curling championships, have racked up six Grand Slam of Curling titles over the past two seasons, and have been the No.1-ranked team in the world for one of the longest stretches of time — 64 weeks and counting — in the modern era of curling.

Canada drew a tough opponent in Mouat's team, which won the world championship in 2023 and 2025 (representing Scotland) and took Olympic silver in 2022. 

They looked in danger of missing the playoffs, sitting 4-4 after Canada handed them their third straight loss on Tuesday. But Mouat's team beat the U.S. In a do-or-die round robin finale before knocking off unbeaten Switzerland in the semis.

The Swiss came back to win the bronze game today, trouncing Norway 9-1.

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