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Thursday, 14 February, 2002, 19:50 GMT
GB keep up winning ways
By BBC Sport Online's Mike Haggerty in Salt Lake City
Britain's women curlers gained their third round-robin victory out of four with a workmanlike 8-5 win over Russia.
The victory keeps Rhona Martin team's team in a semi-final qualifying position, sharing third place with Germany behind undefeated Canada and Switzerland.
Russia scored one in the fourth and then the teams swapped singles again in the next two ends to give Britain a 4-2 lead after six ends.
Martin then pulled further ahead, scoring a two in the seventh end.
Although Russia managed another single in the eighth, the British quartet scored another two in the ninth to kill off the game.
This was despite having Martin's first stone taken off the ice for a hog-line offence when she held onto her delivery past the legal line.
With the game now beyond them, Russia scored two in the last end for a final score of 8-5 to Britain.
"Once we got the hang of the ice - which is getting straighter with every game - we kept in control," said Martin afterwards.
"It would have been quite easy for us to lose a couple of shots mind way through the game, but we played well."
Britain have now played and beaten all three teams at the bottom of the ranking.
The British women now go into a tough sequence of games, beginning with table-toppers Canada.
"The tough road starts now," conceded Martin. "There's a long way to go and a lot of tough teams out there.
"It doesn't matter what nation we're playing, it's another four curlers.
"We'll see what they've got to throw at us, and we'll throw back at them".
Norway 10-5 Germany
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