Canada's Martin continues streak to book Norway final

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Posted: Friday 26th February 2010 | 1:49

CANADA'S Kevin Martin continued his invincible streak at the Vancouver Olympic centre with his tenth consecutive victory to move into the gold medal match where he will face Thomas Ulsrud of Norway.

MARCHING ON: Canada's Kevin Martin continues his seemingly unstoppable run in Vancouver and is just one win away from gold (Getty Images)

Martin has been untouchable thus far and again he was at his imperious best to seal a 6-3 victory over Sweden's Niklas Edin, who threw in the towel before the final end.

The Canadian skip has clearly learnt how to handle home advantage. Having been forced to settle for silver at last year's World Championships in Moncton, losing three times to Great Britain, he is now just one match away from the perfect Olympics.

"I feel great. It was really fun. I like the ice, I like the rocks and now we're just going to let her go," said Martin.

"He played aggressively and had us on the ropes at times. If he had made one or two of his really tough shots then it could have ended differently."

Against Edin, who overcame Great Britain's David Murdoch in Wednesday's tie-break match, he was once more too strong.

Edin, the reigning European champion, showed the form that had got him to the knock-out stages in the first three ends, after which the scores were tied at 1-1.

But Martin's quality soon shone through and a single in the fourth, followed by consecutive doubles in the fifth and sixth ends, as the constant pressure finally took its toll on Edin, gave Canada a lead they never looked like losing.

In the eighth and ninth ends Edin did pull two singles back but trailing by three, ahead of the final end, the Swede decided enough was enough and will now do battle with Switzerland's Ralph Stoeckli for bronze.

"We started well and we had a shot for four in the third end. If we had picked up four, we might well have won the game but we had to make all our shots to win," said Edin.

"We got our chances and didn't take them. It was a perfect start, but we didn't do it.

"We had a few good games and a few bad games. Overall, we're happy. If we play the best we can, we can beat anyone, but we need to play a full game.

"You can make some mistakes, but not in the wrong places. If you miss, you have to miss in the right places.

"Maybe we played aggressive with the hammer, but we were trying to keep it fairly simple. We wanted to keep it close as long as we could but that one in the third end was unfortunate."

Ulsrud did not have it all his own way against Stoeckli but Martin aside, it has been the Norwegian rink, in all the glory of their red, white and blue argyle trousers, who have been the most impressive in Vancouver.

Their only defeats have come to Sweden as well as Martin, who edged out Ulsrud 7-6 in the opening match of the competition.

And it was a double in the ninth end that proved crucial for Ulsrud. That gave him a 7-4 lead and while Stoeckli pulled one back in the tenth end, Norway booked their place in the final with relative ease.

Earlier, Norway had taken 2-0 and 4-1 leads as Switzerland were constantly chasing the game. In the sixth Stoeckli did reduce the score to 4-3 before the skips exchanged singles but it was Ulsrud's double in the ninth that dealt the hammer blow.