Britain’s Chemmy Alcott , having fought back from the third leg break of her career last August, was understandably delighted with her 19th place finish in the Sochi 2014 women’s downhill on Wednesday.

Switzerland’s Dominique Gisin and Slovenian Tina Maze became the first athletes in winter Olympics history to share a gold medal after both recorded a time of one minute, 41.57 seconds at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center.

Gisin was the first to set the benchmark before Maze matched her, with another Swiss, Laura Gut, earning bronze after finishing 0.10 seconds adrift of the pair.

Alcott’s time of 1:43.43 was 1.86secs off the pace, but there was no disguising her delight at making the top 20.

”To come and be 19th, less than two seconds off on the toughest downhill I’ve ever skied, it’s up there,” said the 31-year-old Londoner.

”I know that sounds crazy to some people because we’ve got a strong Team GB and we’re going to win loads of medals here. (But) to come to my fourth Olympics, 19th is a gold for me.

”Anyone who’s followed what I’ve been through will understand that.”

Alcott competed in the super combined earlier this week, taking part in the downhill event as practice for Wednesday’s event before withdrawing from the slalom. That was always something she had intended to do, as she was wary of taking on too much after the latest leg break.

Britain’s women curlers suffered disappointment at the Ice Cube Curling Center, where they lost 9-6 to 2010 Olympic runners-up Canada after a dramatic finish.

Canada trailed 8-6 going into the 10th and final end and, with Britain holding one stone, skip Eve Muirhead had the option of rolling the final stone into the house to square the match at 8-8 and take it into an 11th end.

Instead Muirhead went for outright victory by bidding to remove three Canadian stones and the gamble backfired.

It was Britain’s second defeat in three round-robin matches - they also lost to European champions Sweden - and they have six matches left to try to book a top-four spot and a place in the semi-finals.