Great Britain curling skip David Murdoch vowed not to leave Turin without a medal despite suffering a heart-breaking semi-final defeat.

Murdoch faces the difficult task of raising his side for tomorrow's bronze medal play-off with the United States after a last stone semi-final loss to Finland.

Finnish skip Markku Uusipaavalniemi sent down an inch perfect stone to secure a 4-3 win and leave Murdoch and his four-man team standing disconsolately by the side of the rink.

Murdoch said: "We are still going into an Olympic medal match and we have to make sure we are going home with a medal after all this because that is what we came here to do.

"I think we have done everything possible and trained as hard as possible and the whole team has played with a lot of confidence and spirit.

"Playing in the final would have been the biggest thing ever and it is going to be a huge test of our team to get over the disappointment and make sure we come out firing."

Murdoch's men were never really in control against opponents who had come on strong in the second half of the round-robin tournament and began with the crucial final stone advantage.

Finnish tactics kept Britain tightly reined in until the sixth end when Uusipaavalniemi took out a British score with his final stone and put his side two ahead.

Great Britain clawed their way back level after a penultimate end error by Uusipaavalniemi but it still left Finland going into the final end with the final stone that mattered.

British speed-skater Jonathan Eley booked his place in the quarter-finals of the men's 500metres by finishing second in his heat.

Irina Slutskaya bids to overturn a deficit of less than a single point and complete her remarkable comeback from injury by lifting the Olympic figure skating title tonight.

Slutskaya narrowly trails American leader Sasha Cohen going into the free dance and is dreaming of gold less than three years after being diagnosed with the serious heart disease vasculitis.

The 27-year-old insists her problems during her battle to regain her place at the top of the world has given a new perspective to her performances.

Slutskaya said: "The last four years have changed my life. This is my third Olympic Games and I feel I have grown up. I now understand that life is not only about figure skating. We cannot decide our lives and we have to go through it."

Japan's Shizuka Arakawa also stands less than a point behind Cohen in third place with 66.02. Emily Hughes, the younger sister of reigning champion Sarah Hughes, is seventh.