Great Britain missed out on a World Championship medal following a 3-1 defeat to Kazakhstan in their final Division One Group A clash in Austria.
Britain, who have not won a medal since finishing runners-up in the 2001 tournament in Slovenia, went into the contest still in with a chance of finishing second.
But despite taking an early lead, Britain could not capitalise and a medal opportuni
ty went begging.
Kazakhstan suffered an early blow when Roman Starchenko was thrown out of the game for elbowing GB defenceman Kyle Horne. On the resulting powerplay, Britain took advantage when David Clarke fired home.
After killing off a five-on-three penalty, Britain were pegged back in the 13th minute when Andrey Spiridonov netted for Kazakhstan.
GB netminder Stephen Murphy, who has enjoyed an outstanding tournament, was doing his best to keep Kazakhstan at bay, his side having been outshot 20-4 in the first period and 15-4 in the second.
After a scoreless middle session, Kazakhstan grabbed the go-ahead goal in the 55th minute when Spiridonov netted his second of the game and Alexey Vyatkin made sure of the win 32 seconds later.
GB coach Paul Thompson admitted "I couldn't have asked for any more" after his side had to settle for fourth place.
He added: "Every player gave me everything they had, they left nothing out there and I am proud of each and every one of them. In fact I thanked them all after the game for taking us on such a good journey."
What do you think? Post your comments below. READ MORE Football headlines.More Blades.More Owls.More Spireites.More Rovers.More Reds.More Millers.More Ice Hockey.More rugby.More boxing.Sports columnists.All sport categories. The full article contains 300 words and appears in Sheffield Star newspaper.
