Ewan MacDonald has vowed Great Britain's curlers will bounce back from their semi-final despair by adopting a more positive approach in today's bronze medal match against the United States.

MacDonald insists the fear of leaving Turin without an Olympic medal will drive his side on to forget the last-stone defeat to Finland in their last-four contest, and focus on ending their campaign on a high.

MacDonald said: "We will get back up for the bronze medal match and go out there and maybe have more of a go because we have come too far to be going away from these Olympics without a medal.

"We are so disappointed at missing out but we will move on and get over it. It is a massive game for us because there is a medal at stake and we will come out firing."

Great Britain's 4-3 loss to an inch-perfect last-stone draw by Finnish skip Markku Uusipaavalniemi meant MacDonald would fail to emulate his wife Fiona who scooped gold four years ago with the women in Salt Lake City.

But MacDonald said his team would take plenty of positives out of such a tight encounter which would stand them in good stead against the Americans, who were beaten 11-5 by Canada with an end to spare.

MacDonald added: "The way the guys have played has been fantastic and we couldn't have played an awful lot better, but when a guy plays a last shot like that what can you do?

"Obviously the immediate thought was of going home but we will not be thinking about that on Friday, we will be thinking of going out there and doing the same job."

MacDonald's team-mate Euan Byers cut an even more despondent figure after the loss to the Finns but he said the prospect of an Olympic medal of whatever colour was still worthwhile.

"We'll take a day off to get ourselves motivated again which won't be a problem and we'll go out and get a medal," Byers said. "It will still be an Olympic medal after all."

American skip Pete Fenson was stunned by the manner of his side's defeat to Canada, with the favourites grabbing a five-stone end to wrap up the match with an end to spare.

He admitted his side, who surprised many by reaching the last four, faced the same problem as the Britons to get up for the bronze medal and said he expected a tough match.

Fenson said: "We have played the Brits several times and they are a good team. They have got lots of tools and we are going to have to play excellently to stand a chance of beating them." ..SUPL: