Great Britain's curlers look for positive spin after opening defeat

Murdoch's world champions produced a series of mistakes to hand victory to Niklas Edin's team, most crucially a missed double take-out at the end of the sixth end which handed Sweden a 3-1 lead. But Murdoch knows his team have plenty of time to improve as they continue deeper into the nine-game round-robin stage, from which the top four-ranked teams move on to contest the semi-finals.

Murdoch said: "Pretty much every championship I've been in I've lost the first game.

"It's the norm for us. It's a long week here and the goal is to get to the semi-final. Whether that's in first place or fourth place, I don't care."

Murdoch's team dropped the opening game of their successful World Championship campaign in 2009 to Switzerland before storming back to claim three consecutive victories over Canada to claim the title.

Canada also suffered opening jitters as they were forced to go to an extra end to defeat Norway.

Short track speed skaters Sarah Lindsay and Elise Christie go into today's 500m quarter-finals relieved to have left first-round nerves behind them.

The British racers return to the Pacific Coliseum four days after their first races, when both came second in their heats to reach the last 16.

Both admitted the experience had been far from relaxing with Olympic debutante Christie, 19, commenting: "I was pretty chuffed to come through because it was quite scary with all the crowds."

Despite being a veteran of two Winter Games, 29-year-old Lindsay confessed: "I thought I'd be calmer, more relaxed than in previous Olympics but I was actually more nervous.

"I think I had this fear because my first race is always difficult. If something had gone wrong I would have been devastated and I think that made me more stressed. That's not such a positive focus but I couldn't block it out of my mind, so I was a lot more nervous.

"Now I've got past the first round I can refocus and concentrate and start to do a lot better."