GRAND FORKS – Australia snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in a crushing finish to the round robin portion of the 2008 World Men's Curling Championship.

Australian skip Hugh Millikin had fourth thrower Ian Palangio's winning draw to the four-foot in the bag against Norway's Thomas Ulsrud. Millikin raised his brush in triumph, but brought it down in agony three seconds later as the stone slid an inch too far. Norway took two in the 10th end to tie and force an extra end and then stole two for a stunning 9-7 victory.

In one moment, two tiebreaker draws featuing three teams – Australia, Norway and France – were wiped from existence, and a standard four-team Page playoff system is in operation tomorrow.

Norway (7-4) battles China's Fengchun Wang (7-4) in the Page 3 versus 4 playoff at 2:00pm local time, while first-place Kevin Martin of Canada (10-1) meets 2006 world champion David Murdoch of Scotland (8-3) in the Page 1 versus 2 playoff at 7:00pm.

"Oh wow," said Ulsrud.

"I thought we blew it in the eighth end. Then I thought we blew it in the extra. I just thought we blew it."

Ulsrud, the 2007 European runner-up, lost to China earlier in the day to set up the all-or-nothing tilt with Australia.

"(Wang) was all over us for the first five ends. But we missed a lot of shots too.

"The Chinese never seem to miss."

It marks China's second trip to the playoffs in as many events. Bingyu Wang led China's women's team to silver at the recent Ford World Women's Championship Vernon, Canada.

In other night games, Canada thumped the United States 10-4, Scotland beat Denmark 7-4 and Sweden scored three in the last end to upend the Czech Republic 8-6.

France's Thomas Dufour finished at 6-5, good enough for a tiebreaker one year ago in Edmonton, but not at Grand Forks in 2008.

Australia, the United States (Craig Brown) and Germany (Andy Kapp) all finished at 5-6, while Denmark's Johnny Frederiksen and Sweden's Anders Kraupp wound up at 4-7. Switzerland's Caludio Pescia was 3-8 and the Czech Republic's  

Jiri Snitil finished 2-9.

Numerous television groups are delivering live and tape-delayed action, plus highlight packages, to world curling fans. Eurosport, CBC/CBCSports.ca/Bold (Canada), NBCOlympics.com and WCSN (United States) and CurlTV are all on site in Grand Forks.

Live results, with linescores and shooting percentages, are available via: worldmenscurling2008.com with mirrored scores also posted at: results.worldcurling.org