By Mark Staniforth, PA Sport, Salt Lake City

No sooner had the bronze medal been hung around Alex Coomber's neck than Great Britain's Winter Olympic heroine was setting her sights on bettering her feat in Turin four years from now.

Coomber says there is no way she will not be at the next Games to defend her podium finish. In the meantime, the 28-year-old from Somerset aims to use her new-found status to promote skeleton and find her successors.

She must also make some difficult decisions closer to home. Coomber was given 18 months' leave from her job as an RAF Intelligence Officer in order to pursue her Olympic dream. She justified their faith by racing into second behind Tristan Gale and Lee Ann Parsley in a Park City blizzard yesterday.

Whether the RAF will be willing to extend the deal to incorporate Turin is another matter, just as is Coomber's own desire to juggle two occupations.

But she said: "I will definitely come back in 2006 - whether I'm in the RAF or not, whether I'm full time or not full time.

"The RAF have supported me for four years, and it is a lot to ask for them to keep supporting me for another four. I'd totally understand it if they said 'enough is enough, you've got to choose'."

Coomber's immediate plan requires another difficult balancing act. She is a rather reluctant celebrity, yet she knows the greater the limelight she seeks the more successful she will be in raising the profile of her sport.

She is already booked on They Think It's All Over. She doesn't fancy A Question of Sport much, explaining: "I'd get all the answers wrong."

Coomber really wants to get back to basics.

"Five years ago when I started skeleton it was regarded as off the wall, a mad nutter thing.

"Now we have to capitalise on its popularity. One of the things I've missed this season coming up to the Olympics is that I haven't been able to run novice weeks.

"That's the one thing I enjoy the most, and I usually do it at least once in a season. I think it's very important to look to our future. There's so much focus on today when it should be on tomorrow."

Given the conditions she raced in and the hundredths of a second which separate top sliders, bronze for Coomber in these Games was as good as gold.

"It's just a huge sense of relief that I've proved myself. It's not gold, but how many Brits get medals in the Winter Olympics? We get a lot of criticism and now we are fighting back."